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LECTURES km ADDRESSES. 



BY REV. JOHN DEMPSTER, D. D 



WITH AN 



APPENDIX, 



CONTAINING THE FUNERAL SERMON AND MEMORIAL 

SERVICES OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH 

OF THE AUTHOR. 



EDITED BY REY. D. W. CLARK, D. D. 



nit. 



CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED BY POE & HITGHCOCK 

CORNER OF MAIN" AND EIGHTH STREETS. 



R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTE: 

1864. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, 
BY POE & HITCHCOCK, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of Ohio. 



1 txi^ 



EDITOE^S PEEFAOE. 



It was our good fortune, in a casual visit to our 
venerable friend some months before his death, to 
secure from him the promise that he would make a 
collection of his lectures and addresses for publica- 
tion. Not long after, a package containing the 
promised articles w^s received. But scarcely had 
we gone through them, when the sad intelligence 
broke upon us thsit John Dempster was dead. It 
was all the more startling from the fact that it had 
never seemed to enter our thought that a man of 
such iron will and with such large plans, in which 
he was still working with all the vigor of youth, 
could die in the midst of his unfinished work. The 
sudden death of the author devolved upon the edi- 
tor a responsibility and a labor not anticipated at 
the outset. But he trusts that he has so accom- 
plished this task as to meet the approval of the 
friends of the Doctor, and of the Church. 

Away back, thirty years ago, we remember to 
have heard accounts of most thrilling scenes trans- 
piring under the ministry of Dr. Dempster. In 
those times he rode around the large districts of 



2 EDITOE S PEEFACE. 

Central and ITorthern New York like a flame of 
fire. Immense congregations attended his ministry. 
His preaching swayed the masses as the waving 
grain bends before the gale. If those sermons could 
have been caught as they fell from his lips, and 
daguerreotyped with the living spirit with which 
they flowed from him, then might we have before 
us the living, breathing John Dempster in ail the 
might of his early manhood. 

The best substitute is that aff'orded by this vol- 
ume. It contains his missionary addresses and his 
mature thoughts embraced in his lectures to his 
theological students. They are marked by the pe- 
culiarities of his style of thought and diction. 

As the esteemed author passed away from earth 
to heaven, while the work was yet in the hands of 
the printer, we have added an Appendix, containing 
the funeral discourse by the Pvev. Dr. Eddy, and the 
memorial services subsequently had in the Clark- 
Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago. This 
last feature of the work will be peculiarly accept- 
able to the friends of the deceased at this time ; and 
will also be of permanent interest, as it enables us 
to embody much of his personal history, together 
with graphic delineations of his character. 

D. W. C. 

Western Book Concern. 



OOITTENTS. 



I. 

PAGE. 

The Ministeeial Call: A Discourse addressed to the Members 
of the Biblical Institute, Concord, N. H., February 23, 1854... 13 

II. 

The Characteristics op the Age in their Demands on the Min- 
istry : An Address to the Alumni of the Biblical Institute, 
Concord, N. H., November 2, 1854 41 

III. 

Divine Providence : A Lecture delivered before the Members of 
the Biblical Institute, Concord, N. H 76 

IV. 

Truth : An Address delivered before the Literary Societies of the 
Biblical Institute, Concord, N. H., November 2, 1852 127 

V. 

On the Authority of the Supernatural: An Address to the 
Graduating Class of the Garrett Biblical Institute, 1860 161 



VI. 

On the Supernatural Characteristics op Christ : A Lecture to 

the Students of the Garrett Biblical Institute 175 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

VII. 

PAGE. 

On the Importance op Locating a Biblical Institute in the 
West: An Address delivered at Concord, N. H 189 

vni. 

J"he Teacher's Parting Word : An Address to the First Gradua- 
ting Class of the Garrett Biblical Institute 199 

IX. 

Man Individual — Man Social : An Address delivered before the 
Literary Societies of the Upper Iowa University 207 

X. 

On the Use and Importance of Mental Culture: An Address to 
the Students of the Garrett Biblical Institute 225 



XI. 

A Charge to Kev. Dr. Foster: Delivered at his Inauguration as 
President of the North-Western University 237 

XII. 

A Baccalaureate Address: Delivered to the Graduating Class of 
the North-Western University for 1862 253 

xm. 

A Review of the Westminster Review: A Lecture delivered, 
by Request, to the Students of the Garrett Biblical Institute 
in 1858 273 

XIV. 

Character as Connected with Success in the Sacred Office : An 
Address to the Graduating Class of the Garrett Biblical Insti- 
tute for 1859 293 



CONTENTS. O 

XV. 

PAGE. 

Grounds of Ministerial Success : An Address delivered to the 
Graduating Class which had finished its Course in the Garrett 
Biblical Institute 305 

XVI. 

A Missionary Address : Delivered on the Occasion of the De- 
parture of Rev. Mr. Baume and family for India 315 

XVII. 

The Field of Missions : An Address delivered before the Mis- 
sionary Society of the Theological Seminary of Chicago 339 

XVIII. 

A Missionary Address : Delivered on the Departure of Eev. J. R. 
Downey and wife for India 34.3 

XIX. 

The Missionary Work : An Address delivered on the Departure 
of Rev. P. T. Wilson as a Missionary to India 355 

XX. 

The Gospel only Adapted to Effect Man's Redemption : An 
Address delivered before the Missionary Society of Lawrence 
University 361 

XXI. 

The Gospel the only Agency that can Elevate the Pagan Na- 
tions : A Missionary Address 375 



CONTENTS. 



APPEi^DIX, 



I. FUNERAL SERMON. 

PAGE. 

Preached on the Occasion of the Death of De. Dempster, 

AT EVANSTON, Il.L., DECEMBER 1, 1863, BY ReT. ThOMAS M. 

Eddy, D. D , 3 



II. MEMORIAL SERVICES. 

HELD IN THE CLAKK-STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHTJECH, CHICAGO, DEC. 10, 1863. 

1. Dr. Dempster as a Minister, by Rev. F. D. Hemenway 33 

2. Dr. Dempster as a Missionary, by Rev. D. P. Kidder, D. D. 42 

3. Dr. Dempster as a Student and Thinker, by Rev. Henry 

Bannister, D. D 50 

4. Dr. Dempster as an Instructor, by Rev. C. H. Fotvler, A. M. 58 

5. Dr. Dempster as a Man of Progress, by Rev. 0, H. Tif- 

fany, D. D 63 



IISTTEODUOTION. 



Dr. Bethune lias well said that ''he who writes 
successfully for America writes for the world." 

It is doubtless not only the privilege but the duty 
of him who can write effectively to write. And as 
the press is now the conservator of thought, it is 
the duty of those who control it to seek out and 
seize upon words of worth and treasure them, if, 
after the rubbing and testing, they shall prove to 
be gems suitable to be labeled and laid up in the 
world's cabinet for the use of all who shall read 
hereafter. In the prosecution of these duties the 
following book has naturally enough resulted. 

Not panegyric is needed to give permanency to a 
book, but rather patient submission to the wearing; 
for if it contain exact truths, compressed in fairest 
forms, it must live, and each separated sentence be 
entitled to its quotation marks forever; and U not, 
the untruth must perish, and the rest only serve as 
material for future thoua-ht-molders. 

o 

Methodist ministers have written few books ; they 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

have doubtless contributed less to the general fund 
of literature than any other body of men of equal 
ability. They have had a mission to fulfill, and 
have labored '4n earnest" to accomplish it well. 
Their labor has been for the salvation of souls, not 
the getting of gain or the renown of scholarship; 
to meet the present demands rather than to receive 
the meed of future gratitude. They have extem- 
porized, but have not published. Hence, our most 
useful and efficient ministers have left us only verses 
instead of volumes, and shreds instead of sermons. 

This has been true, in a most eminent degree, 
with the author. While in his active ministry he 
often thrilled thousands as few in any land have 
ever been able to do; yet these most touching and 
powerful sermons exist only in their undying effects. 
It is with greater pleasure, therefore, that this book, 
which a change of life-labors alone has secured to 
us, will be welcomed by those who best know its 
author. It will be an added reason for heart-felt 
gratitude to God for having raised up so powerful 
an educator among us, and directed him into that 
course of life ''for which he justly merits the title 
of Founder of Theological Schools in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church." 

The book, at this time, is opportune. The words 
of Bacon — ''In the youth of a State arms do flour- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

isli; in the middle age of a State, learning; and then 
both of them together for a time" — appear to receive 
something of confirmation by the rapidity with which 
books are multiplied, in the face of all discourage- 
ments, to meet the increasing demand. Especially 
is the demand great for books of this class. The 
cry is for addresses and sermons, and for such as 
discuss important topics, and examine the first prin- 
ciples of religious belief and moral action. 

This book contains such a selection of missionary 
and literary addresses as will be most interesting as 
well as most profitable and precious to all. 

The missionary addresses are associated with 
times and characters that are very dear to many, 
and the charges delivered to the brave young her- 
alds of the Cross, as they have gone forth, evince 
such a thorough acquaintance with mission fields, 
such a comprehension of all their difiiculties and 
discouragements, and such a high appreciation of 
their just claims and future destinies, as prove them 
to be the earnest utterances of one who knows, exper- 
imentally, whereof he affirms. In the tenderness and 
trust with which he commits his pilgrim pupils into 
the care of Him who holds the sea in the hollow 
of his hand, one reads the father as well as friend. 

In the Farewell Words to the Graduating Classes 
are faithful warnins^s of errors to be encountered. 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

and the shams and pretensions which, in an age of 
activity and inquiry, it is the difficult duty of the 
scholar-minister to defend against. 

Here are other lectures giving truer views of 
study and superior methods of mental culture. The 
student arises from their perusal fired with the fixed 
fact that if he w^ould wield the weapons of Milo of 
Crotona in the Olympias, he must meet or bear the 
ox- weight upon his shoulder; like that athlete, he 
must begin early and labor late, avoiding the frenzy- 
flights and desperation which bound the giant, not- 
withstanding his brazen sinews and iron bones, to 
the tree as a prey for the wolves. Another lecture 
Avould cultivate Truth, before which Error can no 
more stand than Satan before the spear of Ithuriel. 

Providence and science are brought to view as 
thoughts of God manifested in his works. The 
whole universe becomes a temple of the living 
God — the star-fields its lighted dom.e — the earth its 
altar, consecrated by the residence of the Eternal 
Son — the blended fragrance of flowers its incense — 
wind, wave, and thunder its choral harmony, and 

MAN ITS PeIEST AND AVORSHIPEE. 

These writings will make one feel firmer in his 
belief in the great teachings of Christianity. 'Not 
that the foundation is here tested, and all its evi- 
dences elaborated, but because Suggestion marshals 



INTRODUCTION. 



11 



those proofs already in tlie mind, and those under 
the command of Kecollection are drafted into service. 

^'Some books/' we are told, ''are to be tasted, 
others swallowed, and some few are to be chewed 
and digested." It is certainly true, then, that those 
'Ho be read wholly, with diligence and attention," 
are those written when ''learning hath" passed "its 
infancy, when it is but beginning; its youth, when 
it is luxuriant and juvenile," into "its strength of 
years, when it is solid and reduced." 

"It is strange," says Bacon, "how long some men 
will lie in wait to speak somewhat they desire to 
say, and how far about they will fetch, and how 
many other things they will beat over to come near 
it;" but no one ever applied this to the author. 
His power of piercing a subject to its "last analysis," 
and stating the results in their concisest form, has 
long been acknowledged. 

The present volume, though not involving the 
abstract and metaphysical, as do most of the Doc- 
tor's writings, will yet be found to have, as a se- 
quence of its paternity, such precision as excludes 
all "filling in," and makes each sentence and word 
in it a bearer of good. 

Precision of style does not necessarily make tire- 
some reading, as this book will prove. Especially 
under the full flow of thought and feeling, animated 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

by the fire-derived adjectives and infused zeal of the 
author, does it find directest avenue to the heart. 

Since a Presentation of the author to the public 
is not demanded, and since this is a book particu- 
larly valuable to thousands of young men, it may 
not be, from every consideration, inappropriate that 
even a humble student should write its beD-inning; — 
one who may experimentally say, " I know that it 
will breathe nobler notions of life's labors, and nerve 
one for a truer ministry that shall meet the de- 
mands of the age." 

At least I may express the hope that each Alum- 
nus will be so grounded in these truths as to exhibit 
the opposite to that student of Seneca — at one time 
so charming by his gentleness, and so guiltless, 
when first clad in the Eoman purple, that he burst 
into tears, crying, ^' Would to God that I had never 
learned to write!" when compelled to sign a death- 
warrant; but who, by vicious pleasure and persua- 
sion, became his mother's m.urderer, and used his 
high office for the destruction of the life and liberty 
of the State. 

Let the lessons of teachers and the love for our 
Alma Mater be ever among our new and necessary 
thoughts, and lead us in the way of patriotism and 
happiness to purity and heaven! N. H. A. 

Efanston, III., x^ugust 26, 1863. 



LECTURES im ADDRESSES. 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL: 

A DISCOURSE ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE BIB- 
LICAL INSTITUTE, CONCORD, NEW HAIMPSHIRE, 
FEBRUARY 23, 1854. 



" And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored 
to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called 
us for to preach the Gospel unto them." Acts xvi, 10. 

The peculiar occurrences recorded in connection 
with, this passage suggest the general remark, that 
the Divine mode of indicating human duty is almost 
limitless in its variety. All the reasons of this may 
not now be open to our scrutiny; but the fact is 
every-where patent to the observing eye. It ap- 
pears in that whole series of instruction by which 
the Divine Teacher would advance the race. Every 
department of knowledge, whether natural or re- 
vealed, admits of the application of the principle ; it 
regards what we are called on to believe, and what 
w^e are required to perform. 

The context furnishes a striking instance of pe- 
culiar direction in ministerial duty. The minister 

13 



14 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

directed was St. Paul, whose whole history had been 
of a peculiar type. It details voices and visions in 
earth and heaven, by which his apostolic course of 
matchless heroism and success was unerringly di- 
rected. 

In the instance before us, he was approached, at 
a midnight hour, by a spectral messenger, with a 
solemn request. The voice was Macedonian ; it had 
a most sententious utterance. The language was 
enigmatical. It was not, "Come and preach to us 
the Gospel — shed on Macedonia the morning light 
in which you are now bathing the moral creation;" 
but simply, ''Come over and help us.'' The in- 
volved meaning was understood to be, "Come and 
proclaim to us salvation, and expound to us the 
terms of its reception." 

This mode of enjoining a special ministerial duty 
illustrates a general probationary principle — one 
which is applicable to the entire economy of time. 
What is there in all the hopes lighted up along our 
pilgrimage, in all the conflicts which make life a 
field of battle, or in all the requirements of which 
the entire system speaks, which involves not this 
principle of dim or hidden import ? The certainty 
which flashes on moral questions, disclosing all their 
meaning, must appertain to another state; it can 
not coexist with the mingled lights and shades of 
this twilight abode. The single exception to this 
procedure is in the interference of miraculous 
agency. The period of this has ever been restricted 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 15 

to the establisliing of a new religion. When that 
had been accredited, voices from heaven died 
away — the hand of miracles was withdrawn from 
human affairs, and the Divine administration re- 
sumed its even and wonted tenor. This difference 
palpably appears in the ministerial call. The apos- 
tolic call came in no equivocal impulse, or nightly 
dream, or mysterious vision ; but in emphatic terms, 
by the living voice of the risen Eestorer: or it 
came, as to the smitten persecutor, from mid air, 
attended by a sound from beyond, where the 
thunder ^sleeps — by a light outvying the Asiatic 
sun. * 

But the rushing wind and tongues of fire have 
long since ceased to accredit the ministerial voca,- 
tion. While the fundamental facts of the new re- 
ligion were purely miraculous in their nature, it 
was fit that- the commission of its first propagators 
should, in this distinctive, entirely harmonize. It 
was also fit that this great element should fade 
from the call of their successors, just as the hand 
of God gradually withdrew its miraculous interpo- 
sition which had indicated their commission. 

The cooperating action of the agent and subject, 
inseparable from all spiritual duties, can never be 
absent from the ministerial commission. The living 
voice could not be the appointed channel of success- 
ful truth, were not the sympathetic power of the 
speaker intended to imbue that truth. Now, as 

this power and that truth can perfectly combine 

2 



16 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

only under a heavenly impulse on the hearty the 
sacred functionary can never dispense with it. It 
is, then, not the miraculous, apostolic call here to 
be investigated; but that common to the holy office 
in all ages of the Church since that of miracles 
expired. 

Our text may suggest the matter, manner, and 
object of preaching, together with circumstantial 
indications of the times and places of our ministry. 
But the occasion will restrict our attention to the 
CALL and PIOUS qualifications of the ministry. 

Permit me, then, my young ministerial brethren, 
earnestly to address this discourse to you in the 
order here indicated, begging your special atten- 
tion, 

I. To THE Minister's Call. 

The topic chosen is too broad a subject for 
thorough investigation in a single sermon. The 
elucidation of a few points involved in it is all 
at which this attempt can aim. 

In discussing the ministerial call to the sacred 
office, attention will first be directed to some of the 
prerequisites to that call. 

That personal experience of regenerating grace 
sustains to it such a relation ought here to be as- 
sumed. The refining power of Christian truth on 
the moral man has been accredited by so mptuy ages 
as now to claim the position of an adjudicated ques- 
tion. ISTor can it require profound research to per- 



THE MINISTEEIAL CALL. 17 

ceive that no power in the universe can bring an 
unchanged heart into harmony with a single element 
of the ministerial character. Every demand of that 
character would be on a class of emotions of which 
such a heart had never been the' subject. Indeed, 
the statement is not too sweeping which asserts 
every thing to be indispensable to the ministerial 
character which is essential to the Christian char- 
acter. Between these two characters exists the 
relation of species and genus. The ministerial 
must be adorned with every supernatural charac- 
teristic of the Christian, while this is without a 
single one which is peculiar to the ministerial. 
Though personal piety, then, is no part of the 
minister's character, no agency in the universe can 
make him a minister without such piety. It is a 
Divine maxim, of ever-enduring force, that "ihe 
blind can never lead the blind" without periling 
the safety of both. 

Another prerequisite to the ministerial office is a 
fervid desire for the world's salvation. This is one 
of the phenomena of that neiu character with which 
regeneration adorns its subject. It is the legitimate 
emanation of that pure fountain unsealed by the 
Infinite Spirit in the renewed heart. But, though 
this new-born offspring of regeneration is never 
absent when that saving change occurs, yet there 
is no indemnity, in the structure of the mind or in 
the grace it experiences, against the waste of its 
intensity. The perpetuity of this desire, in its 



18 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

original vigor, depends on other conditions. These 
must be fulfilled with fidelity, or the heart of the 
man and the functions of the minister will become 
the fiercest antagonisms. This desire, then, which 
is the instant offspring of renewing grace — which 
emerges from the changed heart like a star from 
the depths of heaven — can never cool in its ardor 
without becoming a disqualification for the sacred 
ofiice. It Avas the flame of this desire in which 
dying love expressed itself on Calvary. It is im- 
possible the disciple should be so unlike his Lord as 
not to kindle into kindred emotion. But if, from 
its very nature, this be inseparable from Christian 
experience, how can it be dispensed with in minis- 
terial functions? Though this desire does not make 
the minister, he can not be made without it. Be- 
longing to every disciple, male and female, through 
the whole range of Christendom, how can he be 
without it whose ofiice is to fan it to an intenser 
flame? The mightiest throbbin2;s of a Savior's love 
is a fundamental qualification for the Savior's work. 
The sufficiency of an agent's cjualificp.tions can be 
adequately tested only by their correspondence to 
the functions assigned him. The minister's work 
lies in two distinct spheres of probational mind — in 
the emotional and intelleGtual departments. Such 
is the moral nature of our species as to be the thea- 
ter of all religious experience. Without this nature 
all felt religion would be as impossible to us as to 
the time-pieces we wear. And as the demands and 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 19 

processes of our moral powers can be known only 
experimentally, how can tlie minister cultivate this 
only strictly-religious field in the universe without 
having had it cultivated in himself? By no possi- 
bility can moral nature, moral truth, and moral 
government be severed, or substituted, or trans- 
posed. It is to the moral universe that the minis- 
ter's high commission chiefly relates him; and as 
the richest class of this order of truth is experi- 
mental — that to which all other truths look for- 
ward — the minister's pious affections should be the 
last in his whole emotional nature remaining dor- 
mant. But the depth, extent, and growth of his 
piety must be exhibited elsewhere. 

Another preparative to the ministerial call is 
found in a preparation in nature — an inherited 
power of communicating truth connectedly. The 
requisitions of the Scriptures on the ministry clearly 
involve this ability: '^A. bishop must be apt to 
teach" — must have the power to communicate to 
others what himself has learned. This capability 
may be wanting in the presence of other very rich 
mental endowments; the ability of clear perception, 
vigorous judgment, and of powerful reflective en- 
ergies, may be present, while that is absent. The 
sacred office demands this, while it can not dispense 
with those. The minister must be able to transfer 
to other minds the thoughts of his own — to make 
his conceptions theirs, and thus open the channels 
throu,o;h which his own emotions shall become the 



20 LECTUEES AXD ADDEESSES. 

property of ofber bosoms. We not imfrequently 
meet witli a mind capable of molding its desires 
into words, of appropriately expressing isolated facts, 
or of stating a simple conclusion, but capable of 
going no further. Such a mind can not retrace the 
steps by which it reached the conclusion; the very 
attempt issues in confusion; the longer it is con- 
tinued the darker the chaos; every struggle en- 
hances the perplexity, till utter gloom involves the 
whole. How could such an intellect reason? How 
could it communicate thought consecutively? How, 
without logical discernment, could it wield logical 
argument? How could it instruct,, by public ad- 
dress, without the power of laying hold on the con- 
necting principle which gives unity to a discourse — 
without ability to trace the links of that chain 
which binds the exordium to the sermon, and the 
sermon to the conclusion — wuthout that perceptive 
power which can place thought in such order as to 
give it ever-growing strength? A mind, deeply 
stamped with this logical destitution, can never 
have been divinely summoned to the ministerial 
office. Still must we cautiously discriminate be- 
tween this destitution being real and only apparent. 
Many a mind of superior logical strength at first 
appeared invested with no such element. This 
power was there, though not disclosed; education 
developed it. The mind itself may have been un- 
aware of its presence ; it may ' have eluded the 
scrutiny of associates till rigid discipline or some 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 21 

stirring event roused it from slumber, and quick- 
ened it into action. Never should the candidate be 
prematurely disheartened, or rashly rejected. In- 
domitable efforts, made in the spirit of self-reliance 
and God-reliance, wield all but a creating power; 
they have elicited, from the unknown depths of ap- 
parently barren minds, faculties which have enriched 
the treasures of thought, and adorned the age that 
gave them birth. Never, therefore, till the most 
resolute, untiring efforts have proved fruitless, 
should the candidate relinquish the hope of suc- 
cess. But when the logical power can be evoked 
by no amount of perseverance, let him know as- 
suredly that the work of the pulpit has not been 
divinely intrusted to him. 

Other arguments, to enforce the importance of 
this qualification to the ministry, are superseded by 
the inspired direction given to Timothy, to commit 
what he had learned to ^'faithful men, who should 
be able to instruct others." Indeed, this ability to 
communicate truth instructively is involved in al- 
most every Scriptural reference to the sacred func- 
tions. These are comprehensively included in that 
primary commission, ''Go ye and teach all nations." 
This high command could never be executed by 
proclaiming unconnected facts, or stating isolated 
truths, or solitary conclusions. To teach the Gospel 
scheme is to communicate connected, systematic 
truths — to exhibit it in its relations, demands, and 
purposes. 



22 LECTUEES ANU ADDRESSES. 

The very structure of tlie human miDcl prohibits 
a narrower import to the great commission. All 
the intellectual laws demand the systematizing of 
truth, to replenish the mind with knowledge. Why 
else would all classes seek truth in the broad field 
of analogy, in the transpiring events of Providence, 
and in the history of departed generations? Why 
else is no mind satisfied in the knowledge of a fact 
cut ofi" from all its relations? Or why should every 
thing that presents itself to man do so in the form 
of a system, so that no event in the compass of 
thought can ever be found alone? Why should all 
the mental faculties be related for systematic opera- 
tion, and all the physical and moral worlds be cor- 
respondently constructed, and yet the sublime truths 
of the pulpit not be so taught? 

In accordance with these unmistakable indications 
is the most familiar experience. That determines 
truth to be powerful, other things being equal, as 
its parts are connected; this is so subjectively and 
objectively — to the speaker and to the auditor — to 
the mind that apprehends it and to the listener that 
hears it. Each moral truth, composing a series, 
may be very insufficient in its evidence, and yet 
that evidence become resistless when converged 
from every part of that series to one focal point. 
Now, this inherent susceptibility of moral truth, 
of receivino; accumulatino; evidence, and this mental 
structure, demanding such combination, decide for- 
ever the demand on the ministerial instructor, and 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 23 

give profounder empliasis to the apostolic requisition, 
tliat lie must be ^^ able to instruct others.'' 

Now, this power, in its germinant state, to grasp 
and communicate truth, classified in the form of 
principle, is never the gift of education or of mira- 
cle, but of nature; it is not acquired, but inherited. 
The office of discipline is not to originate, but to 
cultivate — not to create, but to improve. This 
preparation in nature is one of the preparatives to 
the sacred office. 

The intellectual attainments indispensable to the 
office are not added to this list — not because they 
are to be supplied or superseded by miracles, but 
because they are afterward attainable. Who, with- 
out a perverted view, can deem the ministerial call 
entirely retrospective, touching this class of quali- 
fications? Why should Providence, in this case, 
depart from all analogy to the usual mode of its 
operations? Why should it not conspire with grace 
to give the candidate indications of his future work 
as an incentive to present preparation? It is the 
fact that adequate faculties have been inherited, and 
not the extent to which culture has unfolded them, 
which is preparatory to the call. 

But let us inquire, 

II. In .what the Call to the Ministry con- 
sists ? 

When the pulpit is viewed in the grandeur of its 

purposes — to secure the conversion or seal the per- 

3 



24 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

dition of the race — its occupant can not be deemed 
an uncommissioned agent. Were lie, like King 
Uzziah, to enter the house of God an unaccredited 
priest, he would be in danger of going out, like 
him, a perpetual leper. 

Ages there have been of fearful midnight gloom, 
Avhich have sought the basis of the ministerial voca- 
tion in the monstrous fable of prelatical succession. 
This utter blindness, which confounded the institu- 
tion of Aaron with that of the Christian ministry, 
can not lono; hold its Q;round as^ainst that exe2:etical 
movement which is now unfolding the dispensations 
of God. ISTor can the imposition of consecrating 
hands, any more than lineal descent, constitute the 
ministerial call; on knaves and novices such hands 
have been laid — on such as were wolves and not 
shepherds. It is true there is a large sense in 
which Christian truth may be taught by all its 
votaries as unrestrictedly as science and literature; 
but this license amounts not to ministerial authority. 
For reasons abounding in the Scriptures God desig- 
nates, anoints, authorizes his ministers. Though 
every peculiarity of the Levitical and prophetical 
offices has vanished with their departed dispensa- 
tion, the general principle underlying their appoint- 
ment still remains, and can never lose its force 
while the existing ordinances of the Church endure. 
Because the institute of Aaron perished in his great 
antitype, and the prophetic office found its grave in 
the completion of the sacred canon, we by no means 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 25 

infer the abolition of the great appointing princi- 
ple — that by which God designates, and has ever 
designated, chosen men for sacred offices. Another 
modification occurred, in the application of this 
principle, when the hand of miracles was withdrawn 
from the Church. That there is nothing in the re- 
lations between the human mind and the Spirit of 
God precluding their direct intercourse, religion, 
under all dispensations, directly assumes. For ages 
that voiceless instructor communicated ideas with 
all the force and precision of the most expressive 
language. The completion of the sacred volume 
was the termination of this kind of inspiration, but 
not of all inspiration. Though it has recorded in 
that volume all the divine instructions needful for 
the race, it has not imparted all the influence need- 
ful for the application of those truths. Its former 
functions were to com^municate truths which should 
guide the faith of coming generations; its latter to 
move men experimentally to embrace that truth, 
and ministerially to proclaim it. In ecclesiastical 
language, it makes m.en feel 'Hhat they are in- 
wardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon 
them the sacred office." 

This profound impression on the candidate's heart, 
urging him to the ministerial work, is an indispens- 
able element of the ministerial call. This may never 
amount to that intellectual communion between the 
mind and the Spirit which would furnish the former 
new thoughts, clothed in appropriate words; it may 



26 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

never add a single idea to his previous store of 
tliouglit, or a solitary^ word before unknown to him, 
and yet find ample scope in his other faculties to 
impart the ministerial call. 

The Spirit's function is not to impart to the man 
a message, but to prompt him to proclaim that 
which is as old as the Gospel; not to teach him 
what to say, but to incite him to reiterate what has 
been sounding through all the ages of our era. 

Our mental range is far too limited to allow of 
our restricting the Spirit's agency on the human 
mind. As we have no beam of light to guide our 
researches into the manner of its operations, we 
must be content with the evidence of facts, viewed 
in the light of consistency. All we dare to assert 
is, that it never reveals to the individual ministerial 
mind what it has revealed to the Church in the 
sacred canon; that it never suspends, infracts, or 
inverts the mental laws; that it never employs the 
intellect to feel, or the sensibilities to think, or 
either to determine, but acts on the mind in ac- 
cordance with the constitution which God has given 
it. As by this very structure the whole region of 
the intellect and sensibilities is passive, the Infinite 
Agent can act on them to any extent without im- 
pinging on the ground of responsibility. His agency, 
then, on the minister's mind, can be restricted only 
by previous revelation, and by the divine purposes 
of the ministerial call. How much the intellect is 
implicated in this sacred impulse on the feelings no 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 27 

attempt is made to determine; all that is asserted 
is, that tlie ministerial call is never without this 
impulse. His duty must be a felt duty; the in- 
tensity of feeling will graduate the vigor with which 
it will be achieved. To the commissioned herald, 
that inspired inquiry, ''How shall they preach ex- 
cept they be sent?" is loaded with significancy. 
He knows that being sent implies more than the 
consecrating imposition of human hands — more than 
ravishing conceptions of revealed truth — more than 
a burning desire for man's moral rescue; that while 
it implies all these, it implies something more than 
these: it implies that more than man or angel has 
indicated his duty — that God has mysteriously com- 
muned with him by an impulse adapted to the in- 
spection of consciousness, but not to the expression 
of words. 

In harmony with this private indication of duty 
will be the public recognition of the Church. In 
this regard the first age of the ministry was unlike 
any after age. From the necessity of the case, the 
incipient ministry of the apostles was independent 
of the Church, which as yet had not an ecclesias- 
tical existence; it, of course, could have no part in 
creating that agency which was afterward to give it 
existence. But, as the nature of this necessity could 
allow it only a temporary existence, the first state 
of the ministry could be no criterion for its per- 
manent guide. While the Divine Founder of the 
Church was present in person, all authority of the 



28 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

Cliurcli in recognizing tlie ministry was superseded. 
'^ Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel 
to every creature," endowed them with plenary 
authority. It made the functions of the ministry 
personally binding on them ; they demanded of men 
a recognition of their official character by virtue of 
this authority which had invested them. But when 
the opened heavens had received the ]\Iaster from 
his disciples, and those whom he had in person 
commissioned had finished their ministry, new re- 
lations sprang up between the Church and the min- 
istry. When that radiant age of plenary inspiration 
had rolled away — when the heavenly voices and 
visions were over — the ministerial authority ceased 
to come miraculously from Heaven, but that office 
required the approving voice of the Church. This 
is not inverting the order in v/hich these relations 
were first established, but greatly modifying it : the 
dependence of the ministry on the Church, in other 
respects, requires it should need the confirmatory 
voice of the Church. As no ministry could long 
advance, in the prosecution of its aggressive com- 
mission, w^ithout support from the treasury and 
countenance from the Church, that body must 
either sustain every pretender to a divine mis- 
sion, or have a controlling agency in determining 
iclio has received it. 

In pressing the necessity of this ecclesiastical 
recognition, let me not be misunderstood. It is 
not affirmed that this is, in all possible circum- 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 29 

stances, indispensable. In tlie days of general apos- 
tasy, large divisions of the nominal Church may be 
so utterly void of vitality as to reject the applicant 
for its approval on the very ground that he pos- 
sesses divine qualifications. An example of this is 
found in almost every great reformer, and in the 
noblest sufferers at the stake; such should ''obey 
God rather than man." They should cooperate 
with the Infinite Spirit, though not recognized by 
a single voice on earth. They should do it in the 
light of the kindled fagots, and in the midst of the 
thunders of priestly anathemas. Even then should 
they advance with an intrepid step, unawed by the 
most fearful blow impending to crush them. 

But though it is a sublime virtue of the most 
gifted spirits to thus toil against the interdict of a 
fallen Church in the face of consuming flames, it 
furnishes no justification for neglecting the voice of 
the Church when that body is in its ordinary purity. 
In this state the ministry, as the messengers of the 
Church, should await its solemn behest; it should 
deem her voice in harmony with God's command. 

Such is the person's divine impulse to the min- 
istry that a direct knowledge of it is entirely con- 
fined to his own consciousness. But while this 
inward knowledge of his call can belong only to 
himself in its very workings, indications of its 
reality will appear to others; the impulse felt in 
himself is felt through him to others. Though this 
high charge was privately committed to his trust. 



30 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

yet, like any otlier deep-seated principle, its work- 
ings put the fact in the possession of the public. 
That profound impression of connected truth made 
on his faculties will unavoidably be self-revealing. 
His communication of consecutive truths, bathed in 
the radiancy in which 'his own spirit is kindled, 
w411 never permit his call to remain a secret. The 
Church will know it, earth and heaven will know 
it, and, except in the dark hour of Satanic assault, 
no doubt of it will ever shade his own mind. 
Nothing can be transferred which is not possessed. 
As in lithography the stone can impart no impres- 
sion till it has received it, so is it in the speaker's 
communications to other minds; he can no more fail 
to transfer his own emotions than he can kindle 
them in other bosoms when they are not in his own. 
It is this state of commissioned mind which makes 
it "desire the office of a bishop;" it desires the 
office, not the title of a bishop, not the emolument 
of a bishop, not the lordly sway of a bishop, but 
the hazardous work, the strenuous toil of a bishop. 
Its aim will be immeasurably higher than what glit- 
ters before the eye of vanity, or cupidity, or am- 
bition; for these that mind pants with an eagerness 
unknown even in the fiery chase of ambition. It is 
no more possible that a message could come from 
such a heart, without revealing the truthfulness of 
its source, than that the light of noon should be 
self-concealing. It is never perplexing to determ- 
ine whether the minister performs his work as 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 31 

the patient enters on his course of medicine, deem- 
ing it a less evil than the disease which it is to 
vanquish; or whether he does it, as the hungry 
take food, with the intensest appetite. No, the 
kindled thoughts on fire within him will move his 
lips to powerful utterance. The majesty of his 
theme will be his inspiration; the vision of eternal 
realities which has burst on his view makes the 
sphere of his conceptions too bright to allow the 
hearers to doubt of his commission. The Church 
needs no art of the casuist to settle the question of 
his call; this is readily adjudicated on the authority 
of infallible signs. It will appear in every truth 
that leaps from his opened lips in public; so that 
the divine voice which called him sounds through 
him, calling the Church to a recognition of his 
commission; and, in accrediting him, the voice 
from earth harmonizes with that from heaven. 
Your attention is next directed, 

III. To THE Devotedness eequieed by the 
MiNiSTEEiAL Vocation. 

The conviction of the holiness of this calling has 
never been the peculiarity of one age. It has swept 
over all ages; its antiquity is higher than that of 
the sanctification of Aaron's sons; it runs back to 
the mysterious priest of the Most High God, who 
met and blessed the fathers of the faithful. The 
basis of this all-pervading conviction lies deep in 
the recognized nature of the office. No degree of 



32 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

devotion corresponds to its nature but tliat wliicli 
is supreme — that wliicli excludes all motives wtiicli 
would rival the love of Christ. To the choice of 
other professions men may fitly be incited by the 
combination of various motives ; but this would 
vitiate the ministerial ofiice. That ofiice excludes 
professional eminence, greater emolumicnt, higher 
social connections, facilities to the pursuits of litera- 
ture, and whatever else may be secular in its char- 
acter. All these, as leading incentives, are abso- 
lutely excluded from the holy office. The minister's 
work is the work of God ; to perform it, therefore, 
from any of these motives can not make it some- 
thing else; but it would make his character some- 
thing else, and thus abolish all correspondence be- 
tween the office and the officer. The master-spring 
to ministerial character is faith; the motive, there- 
fore, for assuming it must be within the unseen 
territory of faith. Cecil arranges these incentives 
into three classes: the rush of thousands in the 
gulf of flame — the Eestorer's dying love for their 
rescue — the appointment of ministerial instrument- 
ality to make that love availing. These compre- 
hend a minister's incentives — '^a fourth idea would 
be a grand impertinence." 

If entire devotion to Christ's work involves un- 
qualified submission to his will, then does it exclude 
all mixed motives, all conflicting motives, and all 
suspension of holy motives. It requires obedience 
to what Christ has commanded, in the irianner he 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 33 

lias commanded, and because he has commanded it. 
His complete submission to his Father's will is the 
never-changing pattern for his servants' obedience; 
his mind must be in them. The conviction of this 
has the certainty of an intuitive flash — the strength 
of a first principle — a power transcending demon- 
stration. How is it possible to doubt whether the 
same Spirit which wrought man's redemption by 
price must imbue those instruments of his redemp- 
tion by power? 

It, then, has the clearness of vision that but one 
class of ministerial motives can be paramount; all 
others competing for this rank are antagonistic. 

But how shall we fairly test our motives for be- 
coming ministers? Who has ever attempted to 
analyze these ethereal states in their light and flying 
shades without finding them eluding the most pierc- 
ing eye of introspection ? Here is a demand for the 
severest scrutiny. No amount of mere emotion can 
be a safe test. This may be nimble and changeful 
as Summer gales; it may be dark and strong as the 
Winter storm, and yet act only on the soul's surface. 
The inner man, seated far deeper, may remain in 
untroubled repose. Low down in the depths of our 
nature are often the hiding-places of our motives. 
How shall they be evoked, and placed fully before 
the inspecting eye? IsTot by supposing what para- 
gons we should be — what Godlike deeds we should 
achieve, were scope given to our pent-up moral 
energies; not by gilding our future career by the 



34 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

creative lights of fancy. Our relation to the future 
renders our coming character a contingency. The 
hero that vaunts in the fireside circle is not the last 
to exhibit the coward on the grim edge of battle. 
The moral splendor of future achievements is not 
unfrequently ^'the stuff of which dreams are made." 
That noble daring, that lofty self-sacrifice on which 
we purpose in future, may vanish like the sleeper's 
vision when the future becomes the present. The 
living present can never be apart from the true test 
of character. The only pertinent question is, What 
am I now ? This searching inquiry should pass like 
lightning through all the attitudes and relations of 
my present character. Do I noio live disinterest- 
edly? Is my strenuous toil for others? Do I now 
value human salvation above human applause? Do 
I now act for Christ as though the whole universe 
contained not another incentive to action ? Does 
this master principle, which absorbs itself in the 
endless good of others, now absorb every living 
power of my being? The prospective existence of 
these states can never be confounded with their 
present existence. That bright future may be 
peopled only with the creatures of a fancy-loving 
brain. 

But not only may our imaginary selves in future 
dangerously misguide us, but our former selves may 
be an equally deceptive standard. What has a re- 
membered consciousness of self-consecration to do 
with a present consciousness of it ? This substitu- 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 35 

tion is full of peril; it is tlie assumption of the im- 
mutability of human goodness, the truth of which is 
disproved by the most significant pages of man's 
moral history. It is disproved by the most start- 
ling gleams of light which have broken in on angelic 
history. The terrified universe may know that an- 
gels have sunk into devils — that the first human son 
of Divine love became a child of God's wrath. 

After these events, at first so strange, how can 
the mutability of human character be incumbered 
with a shadow of doubt? How often, in later rec- 
ords of the most eminent piety, has 'Hhe gold 
changed and the fine gold become dim !" How 
many a noble heart in the brightest array of Christ's 
servants, under the sway of motives which would 
honor an angel, has been mysteriously transmuted 
into directly the opposite ! How fatal, then, the 
fallacy of reasoning from the past to the present, 
in the belief that this heavenly grace grows in the 
heart like the star lighted up in heaven, without 
being fanned by the eternal breath that kindled its 
fires ! All should know that this supernatural glow 
in the heart is enduring only as it is perpetually 
fed by the oil of grace. The danger of this divine 
change is measured by the fierceness of the moral 
conflict. The divine oracles speak of this probation- 
ary struggle with startling emphasis. They call it 
an agony to be endured — a race to be run — a battle 
to be fought — an antagonist to be vanquished. They 
pronounce the conflict to be with *' principalities 



36 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

and powers/' and assume the certainty of the field 
being lost unless we are guarded witli the panoply 
of God, and our vigilance be sleepless. 

In this high conflict the soul must often fall back 
on those profound principles, familiarity with which 
consists only in a deep insight into those vieAvless 
motives which are furthest from the careless eye. 
Should some ethereal historian depict what has 
transpired in the hearts of God's most eminent serv- 
ants, nothing would so arrest us as an exact cor- 
respondence between the depth of their agony and 
the glory of their ministry. The severity of their 
conflict would be the measure of their success. 
Both Testaments are replete with illustrations of 
this principle; nor are they wanting in the recorded 
experiences of God's most eminent ministers in after 
ages. 

What one function belona-s to the ministerial office 
'not demanding the deepest spirituality? The whole 
character calls for a high controlling piety — a living, 
energetic, all-conquering piety — one that imbues the 
heart, the life, the studies, the habits, the whole 
man. This principle must sway the minister with 
the power of a passion. He can have no substitute 
for this living, glowing spirit — for a heart throb- 
binp; and flaming with restoriuo- love. Xothins; 

o o o o 

else within the compass of thought can disclose to 
him the soul's worth, or gird him with power to 
snatch it from the o-ulf ; nor can anv thins; else in- 
vest him with that harmony of character which 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 37 

sheds the light of consistency over all the various 
events of his history. From his manner it will put 
to flight all artifice, all affectation, all assumed dig- 
nity. It will ally to him naturalness, simplicity, 
earnestness — the unaffected air of sublime philan- 
thropy. The light of assurance will never fade from 
his path; it will grow in its intensity till it shall 
reach the maturity of perfect day. He will under- 
stand how the fact that God has spoken involves the 
obligation that man should cease to doubt. 

This depth of pious devotion makes his ministry 
more availing, also, by its strengthening operations 
on his intellect. Who can number the mutations of 
that light which looms up from earth's interest? 
Who knows not that its bewildering glare leads 
millions to measures subversive of their own aim — 
that it is only the beam which falls on our path 
from the eternal sun, which, like its source, is never 
changing? Under this influence, the sweeping pur- 
pose of self-consecration, bringing all the faculties 
into continued and concentrated action, their utmost 
strength is employed. In this simplicity and immu- 
tability of purpose resides the mightiest executive 
power; it is the sole remedy for that blighting dis- 
ease — fitful effort. This has extinguished half the 
glory of the finest geniuses of the race. That 
change of pursuit which is the eclipse of the soul 
has wasted the energies of many a gifted spirit. 
The devotion in question is a security against this 
unsteadiness of aim, which has scattered and baffled 



38 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

those angel powers. Alliance to God is stability of 
purpose^ and this girds the soul with the combined 
strength of its ever-growing powers. It gives dis- 
tinctness of aim, fixedness of purpose, vigor of will, 
patience and perseverance in execution, and thus 
does it impart the utmost strength of character. 
The soul, under the dominion of this ruling pur- 
pose, pressing all its faculties to bear on one point, 
advances toward its object with a momentum which 
sets itself on fire. The conviction is ever upon it, 
like an angel-hand, that it has one thing to do. 
Toward the accomplishment of this it advances on 
an air-line, under the obligation of principle, blended 
with the ardor of passion. 

It is impossible too strongly to illustrate the 
truth that piety is essential to the ministry. No 
postulate can be clearer — no truth more momentous. 
What ministry was ever effective, no matter how 
intelligent, without strong faith, true spirituality, 
jprofound earnestness ? The discipline of the heart 
is even more momentous than that of the intellect. 
There is the seat of impulse, the spring of energy, 
the fountain of eloquence. Faith and utterance 
were never disjointed; the energy of the one is sup- 
plied by the power of the other. '• V/e believe, and 
therefore we speak;" not merely what we believe, 
but as we believe. A weak believer was never a 
strong preacher. Whatever beauty and vigor may 
be the attributes of thought, to have power it must 
be bathed in the fire of feeling. Vv^ithout this it 



THE MINISTERIAL CALL. 39 

may be the glitter of the aurora borealis, but never 
the vivifying beam of the fervid- noon. 

None of you, beloved pupils, can so misconceive 
the emphasis with which we enforce piety as to im- 
agine we would exclude intelligence. Your teach- 
ers are not of those who seem convinced that God 
has more use for our ignorance than for our knowl- 
edge. He could prosecute his work without either. 
But while it shall please him to employ instrument- 
ality, he will do it wisely, adapting means to ends. 
He never fitted sound for the eye, or the light for 
the ear, any more than he employs ignorance to in- 
struct, or irreligion to promote piety. Why should 
we impute to him distortion in the moral system 
while we find the sweetest harmony in the arrange- 
ments of the physical system? or why should we 
rank ministers in the class of mere instruments 
while their great Master holds them responsible for 
their ofiicial fidelity? 

While we denounce dull formality, stiff" uniform- 
ity, rigid routine, and pompous assumptions, we no 
less reprobate mere fervor and everlasting repe- 
tition. The minister's course lies as remote from 
the contortions of epileptic zeal as from the death- 
like numbness of the paralytic victim. It is no more 
adapted to the frenzy of. the one thai:i to the mortal 
calm of the other. His is a glow which kindles 
without crazing his powers.. It makes him seize 
with intuitive quickness on every fitting means, but 
never to substitute them for the end. It makes 



40 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

him feel that he may have too little piety, but not 
too much knowledge — that had he the lore of Bacon, 
the genius of TuUy or Demosthenes, still would he 
need the mantle of Paul, or Peter, or John — he 
would need the "love of Christ constraining him." 

And nolo, ray beloved brethren, permit me, in 
conctoion, to implore your most deep and delib- 
erate attention to your sacred call and pious qucd- 
ifications. In whatever other pursuit you may err, 
commit not tha fatal blunder in this. Eeview the 
whole ground of your call, I beseech you, once more. 
You have marked with agony the inefficient manner 
in which many a pulpit is now filled. Instead of 
-piercing, and thrilling, and agitating the listening 
mass, it leaves that mass still stagnant. While 
you can scarcely suppress the apprehension that 
some other voice than God's has called into such 
pulpits their occupants, resolve, once for all, that 
you will never swell their number — that you will 
never ascend the sacred desk unbidden — that no 
earthly hope shall lure you to it — that you will dig, 
or beg, or starve rather than avoid it by choosing 
the pulpit — rather than place yourself there as a 
chilling medium to congeal the stream of life that 
should flow to the perishing. 



■ n. 

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE IN THEIR 
DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY: 

AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI OF THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, 
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NOVEMBER 2, 1854. 



Beloved Alumni, — We greet you, with thrilling 
emotions, from your distant fields of labor, at this 
former center of our common interests. Though 
we meet at almost opposite points of our pilgrim- 
age and vocation; though your work has just com- 
menced, and mine is almost accomplished; though 
your eye is chiefly on the glowing future, and mine 
reverts to the struggles of the past; these discrep- 
ancies are not out of harmony with a common sym- 
pathy. Such a sympathy finds its basis in our 
former relations. These must be adequate to sup- 
port a mutual affection spanning the whole orbit of 
life, and uniting its utmost extremes. Pure, tender, 
and abiding must ever be those attachments having 
birth in the mutual exchange of pious emotions. 
But far surpassing aff'ection must unite teacher and 
pupil whose researches have long been directed to 

the profound principles of eternal government. In 

41 





42 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

such researches the teacher unavoidably transfers, 
with the truths he illustrates, the emotions they 
had kindled in his own bosom. Your own hope of 
rescuing souls, by wielding the truth you should 
master, generated a susceptibility of such emotions. 
This made conceptions vivid, impressions deep, and 
memory tenacious. In this awakened state of moral 
powers, how facile was the transfer of that interest 
felt in the truth to Him who illustrated it! The 
presumption that this principle has operated on my 
junior brethren present authorizes a bolder tone in 
this address, and precludes apology for what might 
otherwise seem out of harmony with the occasion. 
It can not be unknown that the utmost effort of 
the teacher to throw his pupils on their own re- 
sources, to make them self-relying and God-relying, 
can never prevent the transfer to them of much 
that is peculiar to himself. Whatever is original 
in the mode of his conceptions, in the manner of 
his combinations, and in his imagery for illustra- 
tion, will be reproduced in the mental workings of 
the confiding student. This mental affinity between 
speakers and hearers will embolden him, in his ad- 
dress, to dwell on the Age, in view of some of its 
Characteristics, with reference to its Claims 
on the Ministry. 

The time when human a2;ents enter on existence 
can never be an unimportant element in their obli- 
gations. Though their essential relations never 
change, yet are they strikingly modified by the 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 4o 

apathy or agitation which may mark their times. 
In the range of human history long periods have 
elapsed having no character but that of prepara- 
tives. Then has succeeded that rush of events 
which, like the flashing light from the gathered 
clouds^ has followed the sleep of the elements. 
Such is the age in which we are summoned to 
act, and to direct attention to mere specimens of 
its characteristics can not be unimpressive. Though 
what is common to all ages produces a larger surface 
of human interest than what is peculiar to any one 
age, the positive importance of the latter can not 
thereby be minified. 

All periods of human history have had their cor- 
responding distinctions, and to know their signs is 
incumbent on every minister who would best serve 
his generation. How can that sublime career as- 
signed him be fully completed without a thrilling 
knowledge of what marks his times? 

The fact that the millions we are appointed to 
serve and save are a portion of that same humanity 
which departed ages have swept aside, offers no 
reason against the demand for new appliances. 
This demand irresistibly arises out of the moral 
forces encompassing us, which were unknown to 
priority. What can be plainer than that an age 
which has elements of its own must have instru- 
ments of its own; must have an agency adroit to 
wield these elements — to appropriate them to the 
lofty aim to which they intrinsically point? What 



14 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 



large portions of an individual's history could be 
transposed without confusion? No more could the 
periods of successive generations without frustrating 
Providential designs. In both progression is the 
strongly-marked intention of the human allotment. 
Nor can the student of history doubt whether, in a 
momentous sense, this has been the working of the 
system. That delinquent individuals and particular 
communities have taken retrogressive steps it is 
impossible to doubt; but these have so palpably 
flowed from the perversion of the system as to be 
confirmatory of the onward tendency of all its legit- 
imate workings. That valuable portions of human 
experiences and of the inventions of genius have 
fallen in oblivion, along the track of ages, we can 
not doubt; but that these were of vastly less value 
than accessions made to human knowledge is equally 
certain. It were ungrateful to priority to question 
the richness of its bequests to the present age; but 
far richer still have been the acquisitions to which 
these bequeathed treasures have introduced us. In 
harmony with this great lesson of history is that 
taught by the very structure of probationary mind. 
This inward constitution evinces that man's obli- 
gations swell in their magnitude as ages accumulate 
in their nunjber; that with equal force does the 
principle apply to successive generations as the mul- 
tiplying years of individuals. Without intimating 
that prior ages can not boast of finer monuments 
of artistic taste than adorns the present age, it is 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTEY. 45 

confidently afETrmed that they have left no such 
proofs of excellence in the useful arts or in moral 
enterprise. These are now at an elevation of which 
ancestry had no adequate conception. Though Prov- 
idence has never ceased to aim at training the human 
intellect and affections for a nobler future, that aim 
is now more direct, and the moral forces employed 
are now more powerful. It is true " that the cloudy 
vail concerning the future can be pierced by no eye 
but Jehovah's;" still, as his agency shapes events — 
to whom there is no past or future — the study of 
those events is a substitute for that prophetic skill 
to which the depths of the future surrender their 
secrets. Every stirring event is a page in the great 
volume of Providence — one upon which we can not 
close our eyes without the contraction of guilt. As, 
then, we ascertain the intentions of God by the 
events which transpire, your attention is invited 
to a few of them as a specimen of those which 
characterize our times. The first will be found in 
the Pkofound x\gitation of Eastern Mind which 

IS NOW TRANSPIEING. 

Those critical realms where the sun first gilded 
the cradle of the species, had long reposed in that 
death-like stillness generated by that idealism which 
allows to the whole universe but a single agent. 
The breast of those ancient nations on which this 
incubus has pressed for ages begins convulsively to 
heave by a secret power within. This self- agitation, 
shaking the mighty mass, betrays an interior agency 



46 . LECTURES ANI) ADDRESSES. 

which can unfetter the tide of thought, and guide 
its fiery course. 

The ministerial mind, rightly imbued with the 
prophetic spirit of history, knows that this mighty 
shaking will not be barren of results; that, whether 
success or failure shall be the issue of the attempted 
revolution in China, it must give birth to events 
by which the nineteenth century must be deeply 
marked. How can this breaking up of these mental 
incrustations — this fearful agitation which is crum_- 
bling to dust the ancient gods of three hundred mil- 
lions — how can such a phenomenon, which is almost 
alone in man's history, fail to attract that scruti- 
nizing eye of God's servants, which reads the signs 
of the times? How can it fail to stir in their 
bosom a Christian heart, which will pant to leap 
on that long-benighted shore — which will yearn to 
breathe the spirit of second life over that moral 
valley of bleaching bones? ISTor should these start- 
ling events of the East restrict our attention to 
those early seats of the race. Such as are trans- 
piring in the Western realms of the Old "World 
should be read by God's ministers with an eag^r 
eye. 

Every age which has removed European society 
further from that midnight hour of our era, under 
whose shades those institutions arose, has made 
the incongruity between it and them more chafing. 
It is unknown to no acute observer that incipient 
decay has long been spreading through the secret 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 47 

cement of "Western civilization. It is utterly pre- 
posterous to suppose human art can longer adapt 
these institutions of the Medieval Age to the society 
of this wondrous century. All the changes through 
which these institutions have since glided leave 
them separated from the present by an immense 
chasm. A reconstruction of that civil system is, 
therefore, inevitable. Whether this shall be effected 
by the calm energy of legislative reform — which, in 
England, has so far diminished the distance between 
the extremes of society; or whether it shall be ef- 
fected by the earthquake-shocks of bloody revolu- 
tion, depends on the sphere previously assigned to 
moral agencies. The hope is vain that any civil 
interest forming a firm cement can much longer 
constitute a uniting band which, like a common 
heaven, will extend over the two extremes of Eu- 
ropean society. To bridge this fearful gulf before 
sanguinary violence shall render it impracticable, 
belongs to Protestant Christianity. Those great 
powers, now on the grim edge of, battle, are not, as 
formerly, arrayed under their respective banners of 
the Greek, Eoman, and Protestant religions. An 
interest of immensely less intensity has determined 
their present position in the hazardous conflict. 
Whether the ardor of the struggle will not dissolve 
this weaker cement, and resolve the long-oppressed 
society into its original elements, or whether the 
crushing power of despotic rule shall not have a 

sterner sway, nothing but the unerring future can- 

5 



48 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

determine. If the former, then the voice of human- 
ity, louder than the voice of many waters, will 
call for the holy agency of religion. If the latter, 
then a more fearful upheaving is at the door, and 
that agency will be charged with a still more 
solemn trust. 

Nor can we adequately appreciate the character- 
istics of our age without surveying the New World. 
Here are both conspiring and conflicting forces at 
work. Such is their character as to demand the 
agency of the pulpit even more than that of the 
legislative hall. Some of these forces are charged 
with elements of stupendous energy. They must be 
transmuted by religion, or be subversive of its in- 
^ stitutions; they must be subjects of its blessings, 
or quench the hopes which have been kindled at its 
altar. The great oceans bathing our eastern and 
western coasts are not, as has been deemed, gulfs to 
separate us from the degraded millions of the Old 
World; they are highways along which these mill- 
ions are rushing to meet on this new theater of 
national probation. These representatives of more 
than twenty nations streaming to the New World 
are invested with almost every crude element of 
character, and can be rendered harmless only by a 
hand of the utmost skill and might. In the inten- 
tions of Providence, how unique is this vast im- 
migration! The event is solitary in man's history, 
of the benighted nations coming to the ministry to 
rebuke its long delay in going to them. This is a 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 49 

new summons to ministerial action — a new theater 
for the grandest achievements — a vantage-ground on 
which the hand, and head, and heart have scope for 
cooperation as they have never had since ''the in- 
imitable twelve" passed from their conflicts to their 
crowns. Though this single glance at the mysteri- 
ous energies operating on American society reveals 
them only at one point, our limits admit of no more. 
Nor will they restrict us to less brevity in attempt- 
ing to exhibit the signs of the times in the fields of 
science. 

The severe revision to which many of the sciences 
are forced to submit is full of significancy. Within 
our own age the deepest thinkers have challenged 
principles bearing on their face the indorsement of 
ages of light. Instance the German philosophy, 
which has dared to reconstruct the very system of 
thought. Though that philosophy is without just 
claim to novelty as a whole, it is strongly marked 
with many features of originality. It has achieved 
something for the science of psychology, and much 
for the subversion of religion. Bevealed theology, 
having been compelled by those theorists to abide 
the fiery test of their wild philosophy, had little left 
to its source — the sacred oracles — but the wisdom 
of the sage or the genius of the poet. They allowed 
to the Scriptures an adaptation to the age of Au- 
gustus C?esar, but none to the higher development 
of this noonday period. At one stage of their ad- 
vances, they so reconstructed our mental and moral 



50 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

constitution as to find in itself the higliest object in 
the universe, and out of itself nothing but a projec- 
tion of itself. But this broad, unblushing panthe- 
ism, at war with so many abiding relations of our 
nature, could act only by spasms, and survive long 
enough for Nature to take breath to utter her ten 
thousand voices of refutation. 

A theory ineffably more dangerous is that which 
accords its claimed authority with the voice of his- 
tory, while it denies that history reaches up to the 
source of Christianity. It grants the validity -of 
that martyr protest given in the age of Origen and 
Clemens, but maintains there is a chasm unbridged 
by any Christian history which severs this age from 
that of Jesus — that in those two unhistoric centuries 
originated our present Testament — that this is a se- 
lection from the heterogeneous mass of Christian 
writings which had accumulated in the Church. 
Were this allegation truthful as it is daring — had 
it evidence as it has bravado, a reconstruction of 
the Christian system would be a just demand. But 
if the New Testament has emanated from God — if, 
indeed, it be a revelation from Heaven, how can such 
a demand be urged with a shadow of reason? If it 
be an offspring of that Mind which must be ever 
equally aware of human wants, the adequateness of 
its provision can not be prevented by the want of 
human development when it was given. The claim, 
then, for reconstruction rests on the baseless as- 
sumption that the Gospel is traceable to various 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 51 

tributary streams, and not to the Infinite Mind as 
its exclusive fountain. What system of any age has 
ever perished any further than it wanted truthful- 
ness? Before it has become obsolete the truth it 
contained has combined itself with systems less er- 
roneous. But the unmingled nature of revealed 
truth must prevent an eclectic process, and preclude 
all substitution. This is too lofty an attribute of 
character to admit of its ever coming within the 
power of reconstruction. We demand with em- 
phasis, then, When shall that age arrive at which 
the young spirit of the future will not be the native 
offspring of the Gospel? Sooner will the arch of 
heaven fail to span the globe, than revealed princi- 
ples to take in the entire orbit of created mind. 

A broader view would have convinced these rea- 
soners that the whole class of their objections, of 
which this is but a single variety, must give way 
before those very principles whose validity they ad- 
mit. For, how can they allow the history of the 
third century to be reliable up to the utmost claim 
of the Christian argument, and deny to our Testa- 
ment the source which it has always claimed ? How 
can they assign it any later origin, only by rejecting 
the principles previously admitted — only by a sup- 
position not less monstrous than the open rejection 
of all ancient history? Was there ever a wilder 
fancy substituted for argument than the following 
supposition, which they have virtually adopted : that 
the whole Church, spread over the civilized world, 



52 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES. 

without any external head, or general council, or 
legal establishment, or acknowledged authority of 
any kind, and agitated by severe conflicts — that the 
Church thus circumstanced could all be made to 
suddenly reject its sacred writings, and substitute 
others, believing them the productions of Christ's 
apostles? How could this conclusion be adopted, so 
utterly at war with all that ever transpired in hu- 
man history? Is not this dashing to atoms, by a 
single stroke, every previously-adopted principle? 
When such charge us with passing the gulf — which 
the post-apostolic age is said to open before us — on 
the slender wing of mere inference, should not their 
attention be directed again to the fact that their 
objection derives its only force from the overthrow' 
of that very principle on whose validity they rely ! 
Let them dispassionately trace the cautious steps of 
Paley, Marsh, Whately, or any other of those sober 
inquirers of the same school who have traced that 
chain of well-linked Christian testimonies, and then, 
on ground equally solid, shoAV us whether this bridge, 
slung across this fancied gulf, be unsafe — whether 
our passage over it be through the air or on firm 
footing. Let them heedfully inspect 'Hhe attesta- 
tions of the apostles and evangelists, who were pres- 
ent at the events they relate and assume, whose 
lives w^ere turned into a new channel by their in- 
fluence, and who went to prison and to death rather 
than deny them — who positively declared they wit- 
nessed the most stupendous miracles, and after their 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 53 

Master had been visibly taken up tlirougli the 
clouds^ themselves habitually exercised the same stu- 
pendous power." Let them show us how the guar- 
antees of testimony can go further; and if this be 
impossible, we demand the rejection of their strange 
hypothesis, and the admission, as valid, of these 
Christian testimonies. Why should the faint and 
refracted ray of metaphysical evidence divert their 
eyes from the strong and steady luster of historic 
proof? But especially, why, in the name of consist- 
ency, should they heed the voice of history when 
speaking from the third century, and turn away 
from its utterances when they come from the sec- 
ond century? Why is the sacred history of the 
first century ignored ? Why is its origin sought in 
an accumulated mass of unauthorized manuscripts, 
which were the product of a later age? Why 
should the history of this second century want 
validity any more than that of a later century, 
while the very existence of this would be impossi- 
ble without the truth of that? Were the Gospel 
history incumbered with fundamental anachronisms, 
material misplacements, or moral incongruities, then, 
ah initio, doubt might be legitimate. But what so- 
ber critic now pretends to any thing of the kind? 
What sound judge can tolerate for a moment that 
bold allegation of the last age, that the only two 
accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus are hope- 
lessly at variance with each other; or that there 
still remains unharmonized discrepancies in the evi- 



54 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

dence of Christ's resurrection ? All candid inquir- 
ers know the impossibility of considering that his- 
toric proof; of matchless force, which sustains the 
highest claims of Jesus, without finding in it a re- 
sistless protest against rending from the history of 
his achievements that of his supernatural birth. 
This discussion is no attempt to obviate that large 
class of objections involving an appeal to antiquity; 
but simply to suggest to my junior brethren the 
demand now upon them for a thorough acquaintance 
with antiquity. 

To these characteristics of our times we must not 
fail to add another. This consists in a strong tend- 
ency to find in the bosom of the Natural the 

CAUSE OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 

Gibbon, the infidel historian, is far from peculiar 
in this perverting reference of spiritual effects to 
natural causes. We advert here to the five reasons 
he ofi'ers for the matchless rapidity with which 
Christianity pervaded the whole empire, as a single 
instance of many illustrative of our position. But 
how can events favorable to the success of a super- 
natural cause supersede the miraculous character of 
that cause ? No student of the age needs to be told 
how German neology accounts for the peerless prev- 
alence of Christianity in the martyr age of its con- 
flict. He knows that this assigns it to causes ex- 
clusive of every shadow of God's interference. It 
finds reason for no agency beyond what is merely 
earth-born. It sees enough in the decayed state of 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 55 

the Greek and Roman polytheism; in the utter rot- 
tenness of the forces of the empire; in the complete 
poise on which it stood between external unity and 
internal decay; in the extinction of the vitality of 
its majestic organism throughout all its gigantic 
proportions; and, above all, in its religion being a 
simple assent to an idea, while that of Christianity 
was profound devotion to an exalted person. Now, 
though these allegations are unassailable truths, how 
could there be a more stupendous sophism than to 
substitute them for the miracles of Heaven ? Glance 
for a moment at the last reason assigned, namely: 
that Christianity is supreme devotion to a person, 
and not, like polytheism, simple assent to an idea. 
This is truth — deep, far-reaching truth. But is it 
a truth peculiar to Christianity? By no means. It 
has been a distinction of the true worship from the 
beginning of creation. Long anterior to Christ it 
characterized the patriarchal devotion — it was the 
essential vitality of that devotion. Without it that 
ancient worship might have been the earnestness of 
philosophy, the enthusiasm of poetry, the inspiration 
of genius, or some other glowing element of kindled 
nature; but could never have been supreme devo- 
tion. Was there ever a real worshiper in any world 
without an object invested with his own highest 
qualities — the same in kind, vastly transcending in 
degree? Such an object must possess the discrimi- 
nating love of right, and the innate power of achiev- 
ing it. He must glow in the unborrowed and un- 



56 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

dimmed luster of a moral nature, involving tlie 
causal energy of a living will. Such, an object alone 
in the whole universe can '^emancipate the agent 
into the captivity of worship." What are physical 
facts, unconscious laws, resistless force, boundless 
space, endless duration — any thing or every thing, 
merely impersonal ! What can these be to elicit 
the supreme trust of a moral agent? They may 
evade his knowledge, defy his penetration, over- 
whelm his imagination, baffle all his powers — they 
may even entrance him by their living harmony, 
but can never command his worship. In all their 
sublime aggregate they can not even furnish a sym- 
bol of what he adores. 

We are not unaware of that thrilling interest felt 
in contemplating the absolute ground underlying 
the transient phenomena of nature — of that wonder 
awakened, that beauty disclosed, that rapture in- 
spired, by tracing the unity of nature which per- 
vades its mystic system. But what has even the 
pantheistic application of these to do with real wor- 
ship? AYhatever perversion might raise these ob- 
jects into supremacy, the victim of this delusion 
would find all terminating in disgusting self-adora- 
tion. That poetic personification by which a gor- 
geous fancy seems to breathe a living spirit on life- 
less nature is a mere illusion. It is inspiring only 
as it impinges on the verge of personality. All its 
life is secretly borrowed from that living thought, 
kindled by a personal object. Who that reflected 



DEMANDS OB THE MINISTRY. 57 

was ever a victim of so egregious a deception as to 
imagine that the rich tints with which personifica- 
tion adorns the objects of its notice were unbor- 
rowed — were the reflected light radiated by a con- 
cealed asient? 

o 

But while we thus far heartily accord with the 
objector — while with him we pronounce it the 
bitterest mockery to bid a self-conscious being to 
devote his highest affections to inert nature, or to 
hypostasized laws — how can this possibly supersede 
the miracles of Grod? how can it account for what 
can be ascribed only to his stupendous power? Be- 
cause only a supreme person can elicit supreme 
homage, how can it follow that only the presenta- 
tion of such a person is requisite to account for 
all the unparalleled achievements of Christianity? 
Why should this very same object, which had ever 
been substantially before true worshipers, suddenly 
rise up into such amazing efficiency as to neutralize 
the highest incentives of life, and make the mar- 
tyr's stake a field of glory? How, then, shall that 
philosophy be characterized which, that it may re- 
ject all miracles, ascribes to natural causes what 
all ages have believed nothing but a miracle could 
produce? Because the Infinite Hand arranges ex- 
ternal events, to put them in harmony with its own 
miraculous movements, who is authorized to substi- 
tute such arrangements for those 7niraclesf Still, 
this is the very blunder committed by that whole 
class of reasoners with which our age swarms. 



58 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

These miscellaneous characteristics of our times, 
of almost random choice, might be multiplied in- 
definitely, without the slightest danger of exhaust- 
ing the peculiarities of the age. The few, however, 
at which we have so hastily glanced, must indicate 
the special demands now on the ministry; and others 
not enumerated must find their representatives in 
these. The preparation to meet these demands must 
next engage our attention. 

In discussing this preparation, however, no at- 
tempt will be made to trace the successive steps 
to the required attainments; none to enumerate the 
requisite appliances that are to be employed, or to 
point out the obstacles which impede the successive 
advances toward the consummation of the grand 
achievement. My aim will simply be a brief 
advertence to the general mode of acquiring the 
utmost strength. 

Unless the demands of the age have been mis- 
conceived, and are too occult for inspection — unless 
mere shadows have deceived me, and have been 
substituted for reality — our age calls for all pos- 
sible strength in the ministry. It requires native 
strength, whose iron bands shall gird the inward 
powers; scientific strength, which shall marshal 
those powers into the consistency of a phalanx; 
literary strength, whose stores, like the ocean, shall 
be exhaustless; moral strength, derived from alli- 
ance with the Immortal God, and bringing the soul 
into harmony with all the saving influences and 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 59 

agencies of tlie atonement. To delineate even the 
direct means of acquiring, this bright and lofty 
aggregate would fill not a lecture, but a volume. 
Such an attempt, then, is inadmissible; and every 
view must now be excluded but that of a single 

point — UNITY OF PURSUIT. 

Though this is the narrowest point of possible 
compression, it may evolve relations and claim 
illustrations of large extent. 

If singleness of aim shall be found to invest the 
minister with the highest capabilities — if it best 
enables him to strike both with power and pre- 
cision — to diffuse truth and subvert error — to 
rouse the mind and rule the heart — to crush sin 
and exalt holiness — then is it impossible to make 
the light too intense which discloses its workings. 
That the highest power of the soul is secured by 
the combination of all its energies, it is impos- 
sible to doubt. That this combination may be 
fully realized, the object must he one — the eye must 
be single — the heart must be undivided — the conse- 
cration must be entire. 

To divide the object of pursuit is to scatter the 
energies employed. Only half the man is availing 
who alternately acts on competing objects. His 
powers are scarcely rallied before they are divided; 
then combined action is never prosecuted till resist- 
ance is overcome. Whether this vacillation arise 
from instability of purpose or from the tyranny ot 
circumstances, which makes a variety of objects 



60 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

alternately paramount, alters not the case; it de- 
feats the aim of the agent by laying waste his 
utmost strencrth. 

o 

From the maximum degree his powers m^ust ever 
be receding, and reach its minimum point just when 
the highest energy is demanded. In the result there 
can be no difference — whether the cause of irreso- 
lution be within or without — whether the mighty 
son of Manoah were shorn of his strength by the 
treacherous object he had taken to his bosom, or 
overcome by combined forces from without. It is 
common experience, that internal oftener than ex- 
ternal causes obstruct unity of pursuit. 

The efficiency of our principle admits of the most 
ample illustration. When did the aim at merely 
general scholarship ever issue in great achieve- 
ments? Here is found the solution of the problem 
why no scholar, since the revival of letters, without 
a profession, has ever left a deep impression on his 
age. The reason lies not in his want of native 
strength, or literary wealth, or scientific grasp, but 
in the want of a concentrating object, which should 
converge the energies on a focal point. How can a 
marked result arise from the scattered energies of 
the strons;est soul? The diffused sunbeams mav 
paint the flowers with beauty, and enrich the clouds 
with splendor; but they can glow in the melted 
metal, they dissolve only when converged to a point 
by the lens which collects them. The single object 
of the mind's ree:ard is the convex lens, which 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 61 

concentrates its energies, giving their utmost focal 
glowing power. 

To what mind but to that of entire singleness, 
that of quenchless earnestness, does history award 
the discoveries of truth, the inventions of genius, 
or the achievements of the moral hero? How can 
it be otherwise? How can such a mind fail to view 
all objects within its circumference in their relations 
to its single end? And how can such a view fail 
to detect relations otherwise never perceptible? As 
every great object sustains relations, reaching to the 
very roots of thought, and sweeping over its very 
out-walks, it must command and unify a field of 
knowledge unexplorable without such a common 
center. From that center the mind traces with 
astonishment the depth, variety, and extent of that 
knowledge thus suggested and connected. It denies 
the depth from which relevant ideas arise — the 
wealth of original illustration — the unexpected anal- 
ogies which burst into view. All these disclosures, 
so mysteriously made, point to their cause, in unity 
of pursuit. To mind, in this single earnest state, 
science after science contributes its stream, as from 
a fresh and ever-flowing fountain, till nothing in 
nature seems to have withheld its treasure from his 
grasp. 

This is the real and only process by which the 
field of universal knowledge is ever commanded. 
By it the mind is introduced to the truths of 
nature, the works of genius, and to its own mys- 



62 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

terious depths. But if it be alternately engaged 
by competing objects of pursuit, it is thrown be- 
yond the power of the associating principle, and 
has nothing to attract and bind its particular ideas. 
Its unappropriated knowledge wastes as it is gained ; 
and its thought, and capacity for thought, must re- 
main painfully stationary. This want of a nucleus 
about which ideas may gather, this absence of a 
combining principle under which particular ideas 
may arrange themselves, exposes all knowledge to 
the ravages of perpetual decay. 

The source of that grand deception, that success 
in a particular pursuit results from general acquisi- 
tions, is thus disclosed, and the truth of the reverse 
is made to shine in the light of resistless proof." 
Who can consult the structure of the mind, and 
the conditions on which it is enriched, without 
having the clearest perceptions that particular suc- 
cess arises not from general acquisitions, but that 
these are made by intense devotion to a single aim. 
This cause and its effects can no more exchange 
places than mutations can occur in the order of 
logical thought. The scholar may never succeed 
in a particular object of difficult attainment be- 
cause his knowledge pervades a broad field, but 
he will never fail to acquire that knowledge by 
intense devotion to that particular object. 

But though rival objects of conflicting tendencies 
thus divide the heart, weaken the intellect, and 
paralyze exertion, it is not so with harmonious 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 63 

objects. These may be various and numerous, with- 
out distracting attention or abating ardor. Having 
a common end, they are bound to it by that great 
associating principle which unifies all plurality. The 
accomplishment of that end may involve the activi- 
ties of agents diverse in nature, different in sort, and 
remote in locations, without impairing the strength 
of the guiding mind. 

That mind, so directing a series of expedients as 
to bring them into efficient cooperation, may appear 
to the multitude wasting its energies in random 
movements. But to the moving agent these sub- 
ordinate forces have all the order of perfect dis- 
cipline. So far from dividing his energies, they 
extend the sphere of his well-directed agency. 
Thus the unity of the object pursued prevents 
any number of means employed from impairing 
the power of the actor. 

Nor are difficulties in the way of the determ- 
ined mind unfavorable to the exertion of its utmost 
strength. The sole question for the adjustment of 
such a mind is this, Is success within the limits 
of practicability? If so, the more formidable the 
obstacles to it the more thoroughly will be roused 
the energies of the soul — the richer will be the 
splendors investing the achievement. Who knows 
not that the highest displays of character are the 
fruit of the mightiest exigencies in human affairs? 
These" rouse the profound energies of the soul which 

lie in depths never disturbed by the ordinary current 

6 



64 LECTUEES XSU ADDRESSES. 

of life. The determined soul, like the well-formed 
arch^ derives strength from the \Yeight pressing upon 
it. It finds incentive to action in the very obstacles 
to its success. The success realized, and the effort 
to secure it, have their measure in the motive which 
incites and the vigor of the agent's purpose. As 
these are strong, those are large. Xow, it belongs 
to a great end to extend in magnitude at every 
step of approach toward accomplishment, and no 
observer can be ignorant of the growing poAver 
which this increasinp; excitement elicits. 

The man of this simple aim betrays its mysterious 
power over his whole character. It is discovered in 
the rigid appropriation of his time; in the sifting 
scrutiny of his observation; in the scrupulous ex- 
actness of his punctuality; and in the deeper skill 
by which he combines and lays under contribution 
all events to his purpose. He is aware of the 
reality of that great principle, that the structure 
of the soul admits of its energies being kindled 
to their utmost glow only when their object has 
the strictest unity; that, unavoidably, the division 
of attention is the grave of enthusiasm. By this 
law alone will a great object be m.ade to pervade 
the entire field of vision, fill the utmost capacity 
of the soul, and become a world of itself. The 
whole history of the race might be challenged to 
furnish a single instance in which genius glowed 
intensely, in poetry, or science, or eloquence, or in 
the fine arts, or moral heroism, or any where else, 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 65 

where a single object did not absorb the aspirant's 
soul. The severer the ordeal by which inward 
strength has been tested, the more striking the 
working of the principle. The confessor's dungeon, 
the martyr's stake, have revealed its fearless might. 
We may well invoke its agency in the ministerial 
functions. Ten thousand examples from that high 
vocation proclaim its efhcacy. Never was it more 
applicable to this profession than at the present 
moment; never was there an age that could not 
more harmlessly- dispense with it. 

The all-comprising object of the ministry is 
this — to make known God the Trinity to man 
the sinner. 

This has ever been the minister's legitimate aim. 
The most summary expression of that principle, di- 
recting all its movements to that end, is ''holiness 
to the Lord." 

But the scenes of ministerial action, and the cor- 
responding qualifications for action in these scenes, 
have never been stationary. Should the latter re- 
main so amid all the mutations of the former, 
adaptation being lost, ministerial efficiency would 
perish in the gulf which would yawn between the 
laborer and his work. 

But the most unexpected affinity will be found 
between unreserved consecration to our work and 
the facility of adapting means to that end. This 
striking relationship may be best illustrated by in- 
stances of lofty example. Degenerate as is the race, 



66 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

such abound in every moral enterprise in man's 
history. Look at the disinterested struggles made 
by the immortal men, Wilberforce and Clarkson! 
Their history is in this sentence: '^The abolition 
of the slave-trade." Look at Howard, the lofty 
philanthropist! In these words is compressed the 
history of his life: '^Eelief to the prisoners of 
Europe." Turn to the mighty man who rolled the 
flood of truth over the Teutonic nations ! Here is 
his character: ''The German Eeformation." ISTor 
is the history of Wesley less eloquent when com- 
pressed in these words: ''A living Gospel to two 
hemispheres." 

An expansion of each of these sentences into huge 
volumes, portraying the deep workings of these fer- 
vid minds, would exhibit every means they employed 
pointing like a beam of light to the one end. Emi- 
nent as were the honored agents, it was not the 
magnitude of peerless powers in them by which 
they achieved those immortal deeds. It was the 
burning, sleepless devotion of all their powers to 
one grand aim. Nor will a single man of our 
race, copying these beautiful models of supreme de- 
votion to man's rescue, fail to leave on his gen- 
eration abiding traces of his power. Other ages 
will know that he was once among men, and will 
bless Heaven for the spirit that directed his sleep- 
less energies. 

While this deep earnestness — this singleness of 
heart — this lofty consecration to our living Head 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 67 

distinguishes the minister, nothing can restrict the 
sphere of his agency. It will throw, like the power 
of gravity, a mysterious force over his own charac- 
ter, and operate, by secret laws, to sway and mold 
society. The resistless energy with which the per- 
vading power of this principle operates, permeates 
the whole living mass. While it inspires public 
confidence in the man which it invests, it quickens 
his inventive powers, making them fertile in benev- 
olent expedients. 

This, then, is the towering spirit to which poster- 
ity is destined to award its highest veneration. It 
is that spirit which, mild as the morning light and 
meek as the leader of Israel, is firm, fearless, invin- 
cible, uncompromising. It controls the consciences 
of men and wins the approval and supporting aid 
of God. 

This power in the ministry might be analyzed 
with special advantage by exhibiting its particular 
elements as indicating a high state of mental disci- 
pline, large acquaintance with science and literature, 
a mastery of pulpit elocution, a comprehensive ac- 
quaintance with theology and Biblical literature, a 
burning love for ransomed man, an intenser interest 
for the Kedeemer's glory, fraternal affection and 
harmonious action among his anointed servants. 
But as these, and all kindred elements of power, are 
found in the elaboration of our principle, they can 
not here be delineated. As this supreme consecra- 
tion, then, is the compendium of all those qualifica- 



68 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

tions whicli respond to tlie unique call of our times — 
as it most intensifies our mental powers, converging 
all their energies to a point where they burst into 
flame — as it takes up and appropriates every faculty 
to the most intense affection and vigorous action, it 
relates the minister alike to the present and to the 
future. The system under which he operates binds 
such action to the future. He carries the past with 
him, though he stays not behind with that. He 
enters the future, though not so as to forsake the 
present. He provides increased aliment for poster- 
ity, but not on principles which withhold it from 
cotemporaries. 

He looks deeper than others into the wound of 
the race, and traces to this the hydra errors which 
perplex our century. His view of the atoning rem- 
edy is more accurate, profound, and comprehensive; 
for the same reason that -every object discloses its 
relations in proportion to the depth with which it is 
contemplated. He avoids the blunders, committed 
by only half-imbued minds, of applying to the head 
that which was prepared for the heart — of substi- 
tuting philosophy for faith, or of making them com- 
petitors instead of allies — of attempting to remove 
mean's maladies by other means than those provided 
in heaven. 

If these hints at the demands of the times, and 
the only effective mode of providing for them, be 
just, then is the ministerial course marked with the 
utmost simplicity, and intended for the highest of 



LExMANDS ON THE MINISTKY. 69 

all achievements. To surround this conclusion with 
the clearest light of evidence — to give it the force 
of perfect demonstration — is the aim of this ad- 
dress. 

Beloved Alicmni, — We would make the occasion 
which has assembled us tributary to this great aim. 
The events which give character to this hour can 
not fail to secure it a place in memory long after we 
shall have dispersed to our accustomed work. Dear 
brethren, we have met again once more to part. 
Not all are here! Some of our absent members 
have been prevented by distance from sharing in 
the reminiscences whose charm has drawn us hither; 
others have fallen at their posts and departed to 
their reward; others are lifting up their voices on 
the Pacific's coast in harmony with the injunction 
of the great commission. 

Such as have sunk in the tomb have not aban- 
doned the sphere of their agency, but ascend to a 
higher one. They are not lost, but fled — not ab- 
sent, though unseen. Not only Oregon and Cali- 
fornia on the Western ocean have representatives of 
our Institute, they are also found in the ethereal 
regions of the blessed. They mingle in the scenes 
of glorified humanity — they act in the exalted sphere 
of fleshless agents. While the occasion, then, crowds 
the present with reminiscences, let it kindle the fu- 
ture with hope. Though the prospect is dim of our 
reunion in this militant abode, it is not so of our 
future greeting in the regions of vitality, where 



70 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

those ''one in affection shall have one abode." But 
even on these agitated coasts we know that place is 
related only to our grosser nature. State, not lo- 
cality, belongs to a purified mind. Such mind has 
an intercourse irrespective of proximity— =in spite of 
distance. 

Though, in this life, it passes not to its higher 
sphere of moral functions, where increased raptures, 
though social, are uttered by thought alone, unseen, 
unheard, intangible as God's own essence— though it 
enters not now that deep silence in which the rich- 
est harmonies roll amid the outspread beauties of 
the spirit realm, yet has it mysterious fellowship 
amid the wanderings of this pilgrimage. This in- 
tercourse shall pervade the fields we cultivate — shall 
give proximity to the distant posts assigned us. 
The unity of our absorbing object shall be the bond 
of our fraternal connection — its grandeur shall ra- 
diate the tender melancholy of our separation. 

Amid the awakened remembrances of the occa- 
sion, there is one heart which beats with unwonted 
palpitations. That heart swells with grateful emo- 
tion in the retrospect of the past. The period 
stretching back to the beginning of our enterprise 
presents itself to memory in three divisions. One 
of fierce conflict and exhausting toil, while the la- 
borer had little countenance, excepting from an ap- 
proving heart and a sustaining Heaven — when on 
more than a single continent the voice of entreaty 
was heard for aid to the school of the prophets. 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 71 

The next was a time of trembling hope that the 
Unseen Hand which had begun to interfere would 
continue its agency till the completion of the suc- 
cess — that the agency conspiring against the enter- 
prise should yet be made to combine in its support. 
The third has been the realization of these hopes in 
the face of the whole Church, so that the mingled 
sound that then arose of kind approval and vigorous 
protest are now, through the entire East, a harmo- 
nious voice of greeting and thanksgiving. The 
searching light evolved in its beneficent workings 
has dissipated the fears of its cowardly friends, and 
put to returnless flight the objections of its foes. 
These marked results at least feebly illustrate that 
sublime principle thus uttered: 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again — 
The eternal years of God are hea-s ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain. 
And dies amid her Worshipers." 

It is an ancient truth that a good cause never 
fails. It may be impeded in its progress, diverted 
from its course, or suspended in its apparent opera- 
tions; but total failure is out of the question. Its 
type is in the great remedial system, which is 
slowly working out for the race so bright a destiny. 
Such a cause, suppressed, concealed, and apparently 
crushed, like the river flowing beneath the mount- 
ain range, will reappear to fertilize the probation- 
ary field. But, though such records of the past 

will ever be dear to our hearts — though memory 

7 



72 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

will never part witli the lessons they teach — yet to 
the created mind the future will ever have a richer 
interest. It gives scope for higher achievements. 
It will be kindled with stronger lights. Let us 
now, however, deem the past prophetic of the fu- 
ture, and give ourselves for its highest demands. 
Should after years task our powers w^ith equal la- 
bor, let it be endured at least with equal patience. 
Should they kindle before us the flame of conflict, 
let us do battle only for God and his Church. 
Should the issue of the strife be signal victory, let 
the glory of the field wreathe the brow of the Re- 
deemer. Should we fall in the strife, let our expir- 
ing breath kindle the heroism of posterity; and 
when each of us departs from the mortal scenes, let 
it be felt that a friend of God, a brother of man, has 
made his exit. 

But how shall we appropriately speak of the In- 
stitute so as neither to exaggerate nor depreciate? 
It has doubtless been an object to which the gradu- 
ates have looked back with strange and abiding 
emotions. Since the lapse of intervening years has 
modified your enthusiasm for your Alma Matee, 
may I ask your present opinion of her character? 
But your presence to-day is a response to the in- 
quiry. The expensive journeys which it has cost 
you, and the kindled countenance v/ith which you 
appear, are eloquent of the settled judgment you 
have formed. AVere the data sought on which this 
judgment is based, you would doubtless present 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 73 

them in two classes: the personal growth of intel- 
lect and heart in divine knowledge and holy expe- 
rience, of which each has intuitive certainty; and 
its benignant working on its other inmates, as a fact 
of public notoriety. You can doubtless point to its 
career, as to that of a faithful probationer, which has 
had a waxing glory up to this hour — which, though 
successful at the outset, has ever been exceeding its 
former self. It has passed several changes in the 
board of its instruction. It is now parting with the 
last member of its first faculty. One of that faculty 
is now in the West, controlling the interests of an- 
other institution. The second has passed from its 
chair to make the continent his parish. The third 
is about collecting what little remains of his wasted 
energies to establish another school of the prophets 
in the ^'mighty West^ But we rejoice to know that 
change is not bereavement, that successors are not 
inferiors, that the past is prophecy, and that the 
future will be the expansion of present history. 
May we prayerfully commend to the Divine super- 
vision this child of God's providence ! We may also 
be permitted, under Him, to commit it to the sym- 
pathies of all who can grasp the magnitude of its 
interests. We trust, also, that the same Hand 
which has directed the destiny of the first, will 
never be withdrawn from the interest of the second. 
That the holy light, streaming from this in the 
East, and from that in the West, will radiate the 
intervening space of a thousand miles — that the 



74 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

second, being the reproduction of the first, will 
never be its competitor, but always its ally — that, 
like David and Jonathan, they will be strongly knit 
together in life, and, like Melchisedek, they will 
never be subject to death. Let us hope that both 
will send out their anointed sons to grapple wity 
the foe at every stronghold of wickedness, and that 
the New World will .never cease to read on their 
escutcheon, in letters of fire, this motto: ^'We live 
not for ourselves;" 'Sve are your servants for Jesus' 
sake." To whom, then, but to the Alumni — to those 
noble youth who know the power of character de- 
rived from self-sustaining effort — to whom else, under 
God, should we confide the character of these new- 
born institutions? Who else can give the Church so 
thrilling a demonstration of its momentous bearing? 
This, of course, will not be done by high-sounding 
eulogies, but by divine beauty of character — by a 
sweetness of temper that nothing can imbitter, a 
meekness of spirit that never boasts, a zeal that 
never languishes, an intelligence that ever expands; 
in one word, by being a model ministry — ready for 
every work of sacrifice, for every post of danger, 
for every conflict of error — occupying an eminence 
covered with light, from which the mild luster of 
example, flowing to mingle with the strong radiance 
of instruction, shall pierce the densest darkness. By 
thus furnishing the Church with a band of heroes, 
in whom the chosen twelve would have found fit 
companionship, you will confer the highest honor on 



DEMANDS ON THE MINISTRY. 75 

the institution which you represent. You will be- 
queath to posterity a character which shall form an 
abiding object of the age. Those now unborn will 
be attracted by its moral grandeur. They will be- 
hold it looming up in the distance, like the granite 
peaks of ancient mountains. It shall be bathed in 
light long after the darkness of ages shall have set- 
tled down on common character. 

In the hope that our beloved graduates will aspire 
to these lofty attainments — that they will be no less 
distinguished for the elevation of their motives than 
for the compass of their thoughts — for the purity of 
their affections than for the success of their enter- 
prises; in the hope this ascending process will issue 
in a broader sphere of being, perfection, and serv- 
ice — that it will conduct to reunion where the free- 
dom of our powers, the education of our companions, 
and the rapture of our associations, shall prevent for- 
ever these farewell scenes of sundering hearts, weep- 
ing eyes, and quenched fervors — full of this hope, 
we tear ourselves with firmness from the beloved 
objects before us — we bid you, my dear brethren, 
and our cherished institution, an affectionate and 
final farewell. 



in. 

DIVINE PROVIDENCE: 

A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE 
BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



TO THE JUNIOR MINISTRY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

THIS DISCOURSE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 

Beloved Brethren, — The peculiar relations of the Avriter, for 
several years, to hundreds of your number, emboldens him to 
address to you especially the following discussion. His aim in 
these pages has been to settle a few great principles under which 
may be arranged many of the far-reaching truths alike import- 
ant to psychology and religion. The impassable gulf dividing 
between mind and matter — the utter unlikeness in the laws gov- 
erning them — the consequent impossibility of all interchange 
between them — the points of perfect similarity and of entire 
unlikeness between the human intellect and the Mind Supreme — 
the eternally-necessary contrast between all agents and all in- 
struments — these, and kindred outlines of truth, are the vital 
principles with which the writer has here dared to grapple. 

"When it is recollected that the mightiest thinkers of the race 
have hovered with awe around the fearful depths of Jehovah's 
agency in the universe — that the earnest discussion of ages has 
failed to identify the precise limit where the created intellect and 
the Infinite Mind meet, and how and where each acts alone — 
when the intrinsic difficulty of these questions is fathomed, who 
can anticipate that, by a brief discourse, they will be dismantled 
of that darkness with which the erring inquirers of antiquity 



78 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

have snrouded them? The plan of this discourse has admitted 
of little else than the statement and brief illustration of these 
principles. Their full elaboration, it is believed, will contribute 
to the solution of that problem of human life which has tasked 
all ages. 

On these themes the perverting language of philosophy has 
diverted the current of 'human thought from its early channels. 
The Hebrew oracles acknowledged no agency in any realm of 
nature but the ever-acting Mind Almighty. This ascription of 
all action in every element to that Mind needs not the apology 
that such utterances were made in the pomp of Eastern poetry. 
They are the accurate statements of what was intended to thrill 
all created mind. Never can they be appreciated till resistless 
conviction of the essential unhkeness between mind and matter 
pierces the mind through and through. Not till then can there 
be an adequate conception of their intrinsic opposition. 

The discussion of these elementary truths will not be ranked 
with any abstractions by such as know that all action looks back 
to principle no less directly than all principle looks forward to 
practice. 



LE C TUKE. 

A BELIEF in the existence of a Divine Providence 
has been peculiar to no age. It has been ancient as 
our race, and almost as extensive as all the genera- 
tions of men. But in precisely the thing in which 
it consists there has been little harmony. This 
has varied as the light in which it was contem- 
plated has been more or less unclouded and intense. 
Antiquity has not been alone in producing its Epi- 
cureans, who allowed to the world no other provi- 
dence than its laws could exercise over it. Modern 
times have been fruitful of a kindred class. While 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 79 

sucli have referred these laws to the Infinite Mind 
as their source, they have excluded from them the 
least subsequent interference of that mind. They 
leave the mundane machine to operate under no 
other agency but that of these laws. This class, 
however, is less numerous than that which accords 
to God a general supervision of his universe, while 
it denies him every shadow of care for individuals. 
The atom of matter, the insect of a day, those 
minute events which rise and vanish by millions 
in an hour, can never share in the attention of 
Jehovah. 

Others advocate a providence which permits the 
Father of Spirits to act on mind, but never on 
matter. To touch a single wheel in the complicated 
machine of the material universe, would prove im- 
perfection in the manner in which he originally 
constructed it. They, therefore, demand hands off 
on the part of the Creator, unless, to establish a 
new religion, he discloses almighty power in the 
form of miracles. Though these views are not all 
alike dishonorable to the Almighty Mind, the best 
of them fail to accord with the records of his Word. 
They can not be tested, however, by this infallible 
criterion till the subject shall be guarded against 
misapprehensions. 

By Providence, in this discourse, is understood 
the care and supervision of God over all the uni- 
verse BY THE DIEECT EXERCISE OF HIS ALMiaHTY 

ENERGY. At this point we must protest against 



80 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

any resort to that common fallacy of confounding 
a well-attested fact with the Tnode in which it was 
brought about. That the infinite energy of God is 
momentarily at work on every part of the universe, 
may, as a fact, have the certainty of demonstration, 
while the manner of doing it may lie as far beyond 
our mental compass as the profoundest arcana in 
the world of spirits. The impervious vail by which 
the latter is covered, is the very same which con- 
ceals ten thousand other processes in every field of 
our investigation. How, then, without practicing 
on ourselves an utter fallacy, can we permit the 
darkness which shrouds the manner of Divine 
providence to shake our confidence in the evi- 
dence which sustains the fact of that providence? 
Why should this inquiry be embarrassed by a de- 
mand made here which is made nowhere else — a 
demand repudiated by the very nature of the case? 
While the most piercing minds of the race have met 
with no fact through the whole range of inquiry the 
manner of which was not inscrutable, why should 
our faith stagger at the unextorted secrets in these 
lofty movements of Jehovah's administration? To 
urge, therefore, because the manner of providence 
operating is beyond our grasp, the fact of its opera- 
tion should be brought into doubt, is an egregious 
fallacy, which should be promptly rejected. 

There is, however, an important sense in which 
the agency of God, in the exercise of his providence, 
is not inscrutable by us. We know by our own 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 81 

mental structure and operations what is the action 
of invisible mind. We make our own objective, so 
that it reveals itself to us in its action. Did not 
this lofty, intrinsic power of agency reside within 
us, in vain would the Infinite Mind attempt to hii- 
part to us an idea of its oion agency. To conceive 
of its mysterious, self-acting energy, I must be en- 
robed with it; to know its attributes, I must possess 
them; to conceive of its operations, I must exercise 
its powers. Of this exercise no man ever cherished 
a shadow of doubt — the certainty of this is not less 
than that of his existence itself. The light of con- 
sciousness is the only evidence in which the origin- 
ating power of agency can be known. Because the 
human might does not approach Divine power in 
degree, it is no indication that they are unlike in 
kind. The fact that ours extends to only narrow 
limits, and that God's sweeps over the out-limit^ 
of the universe, creates no possible difference in 
any thing essential to free agency. If, then, the 
infinity of unlikeness, at other points, between the 
originated and the unoriginated minds, can occasion 
no difference in what is essential to agency in both, 
I know what the agency of God is with the same 
accuracy with which I know my own agency. Up 
to the point I can act on surrounding objects I can 
clearly see how God can do it. But to extend my 
conceptions over the broad sphere of his providence,, 
I must imagine an agent whose energies transcend 
mine as far as the objects of his care transcend those 



82 ^ LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

of mine. I can^ tlien, have no greater difficulty in 
conceiving of God's universal agency than I have 
in grasping those objects on which he perpetually 
acts. What obstacle, then, can arise to my faith 
against the never-reposing energies of G-od reaching 
every action of the great universe, which has not 
equal force against my faith in the existence of the 
universe ? 

In the doctrine of Providence to which this dis- 
course is devoted, are found the ideas of an infinite, 
ever-active agent; of a material system, on every 
part of which his power never ceases to ivork; of 
created mind, on lohich Divine agency very differ- 
ently operates. 

That the perpetual and universal action of Divine 
power on every part of the material system involves 
no inherent obstacle, is indicated by the fact that 
creating agency has operated in the same sphere. 
If infinite power once acted in bringing all that 
now is out of nothing, why should it not continue 
to act in preventing the same entities from return- 
ing to nothing. To make a thing, and to keep it 
in a made state, must demand the same kind and 
degree of agency, though the difference of our rela- 
tions to those two classes of acts may give them a 
very discrepant appearance. It is the nature of 
mind to act; its sphere of agency is as broad as 
the com.pass of its presence. The Divine essence 
being no where absent, it can act every-where. 

It should awaken no surprise that the necessity 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 83 

of a persevering agent is not equally obvious as the 
necessity of a creating agent. " The reason the latter 
forces itself on all sane minds, and the former is so 
much doubted, exists not in the difference between 
the two things, but in our relations to them. 

Finding that something is, the very structure of 
our mind carries us back to its beginning. The 
process is short, rapid, unerring. The observer de- 
termines that the thing has always existed — which 
is impossible, as it has not all perfections; or that 
it made itself — then it must have acted before it 
existed ; or that it originated in infinite power. 
In the last he reposes with the most entire assur- 
ance of truth. But this constitutional necessity and 
facility of proceeding directly from what exists to 
him who gave it existence, are wanting in our pas- 
sage from continued existence to the ceaseless action 
of him that upholds it. Having always observed 
things remain as they were, without a hand visibly 
to support them, we do not as readily mark the 
connection between preservation and agency as be- 
tween creation and agency. Having ever noticed 
regular movements in our solar system, without 
any perceptible power to produce them, we are not 
aware that the gulf is equally impassable which 
separates between motion — or preservation — and 
nothing, as that which separates between simple 
being and nothing. We see not at a' glance why 
the power of continuance may not in some way be 
interwoven with the constitution of matter itself, or 



84 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

why it may not have been superadded to a globe, 
so as to have been itf? concomitant without being 
its property. Thus it is there appears to be scope 
for both preservation and motion without referring 
them to God's direct agency, and that agency is 
much more easily dispensed with in preservation 
than in creation. The uniformity with which we 
are accustomed to see the movements of nature 
proceed, is so much unlike the ever-varying action 
of all agents with which we are acquainted, that 
we more readily refer those movements to the con- 
stitution of things than to the action of God. But 
this subject is not alone in deluding us by mere 
appearances; otherwise the brightest minds of the 
race would not for thousands of years have pro- 
nounced this globe a plane, and stationed it in the 
center of the system around which the sun and 
stars made their daily circuits. These deceptions 
have fled before the corrective powers of generali- 
zation. To the same intellectual test should the 
evidences of God's agency be submitted. Science 
itself has strangely sanctioned the phraseology, thp.t 
the LAWS of nature are the efficient agency by which 
the processes of nature are carried forward. What 
except a simple definition of these laws can be requi- 
site to dissipate forever so gross a delusion? Let 
us, then, pierce the mists which have long shaded 
this misapplied term. What is its import in its 
application to the processes of external nature? 
''By law is denoted a mode of existence, or an 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 85 

order of sequence;" tliat is, the regular order, ac- 
cording to whicli tlie system subsists and operates. 
But how can the order of the system be substituted 
for the mind that arranges it? How can its opera- 
tions be thrust into his place who operates? We 
call the tendency of every body toward its attract- 
ing center the law of gravity. But what is this 
tendency, this law, but a fact in nature — an event 
of uniform occurrence? Can this event be its own 
producer? Is it not one thing to know the gravi- 
tating tendencies of bodies, and another to know 
the agency that moves them in that order? Would 
not my faith be regulated by the same principle in 
believing the creation had no cause, as in maintain- 
ing that its processes are the agency which produced 
them? These certainly occupy spheres in the uni- 
verse which can never be exchanged. They must 
be those of the act and the actor — of a cause and 
an effect — of a thing and a person — of what is es- 
sentially passive and of what is intrinsically active. 
The agent must know the object for which he acts, 
but the act can neither know its cause or sequence. 
These immutable distinctions were profoundly fixed 
in the great mind of Newton. ''Gravity," says he, 
''must be caused by an agent acting constantly ac- 
cording to certain laws." (Letter to Dr. Bentley.) 
When we affirm that laws which are the mode of 
an agent's action can not by possibility be the 
ageiit ivhich acts, we apply the remarks with the 
very same force to nature, order, raechanism, or to 



8b LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

any other tiling to wliicli casual power is tacitly 
ascribed. We must, then, cease forever to sub- 
stitute the order of action for the agent that acts — 
the rule for the workman that operates by it — the 
uniformity with which the processes of nature are 
carried on for that Infinite Ao-ent which carries 

o 

them on. What possible efficiency can there be in 
the manner of acting after the hand which adopted 
it is withdrawn? 

Such as exclude the direct agency of God from 
the functions of material nature will find by pro- 
founder scrutiny their position a most difficult one. 
Conceding, as they must, that a thousand lofty pur- 
poses are accomplished by these functions, they are 
compelled to maintain that mere matter does all 
this — that these far-reaching designs, ascribable 
only to the mightiest intellect, are predicable of 
the most lifeless mass on w4iich the foot treads. 
Events for illustration so crowd around us that we 
can scarcely err in the selection. Take that of a 
body suspended in the air, wdiich is attracted by 
the earth. This attraction is action. But what 
acts? The earth? Then the earth knov/s when 
and where the suspended body appears. Is it the 
body which acts? Then it must know with what 
degree of power to act; and that knowledge must 
be so scrupulously exact as never to vary a thou- 
sandth part of a grain in proportioning its momentum 
to its quantity, or the millionth part of an inch in 
adapting its speed to the distances through wdiich 



DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. 87 

it falls. That such calculations obtain through all 
the movements of the solar system, we have all the 
certainty of figures and mathematics. Where do 
the annals of man speak of a genius adequate to 
trace these endlessly-varying proportions, which 
reach to every inch of space and every atom of 
matter? But the demand for present intelligence 
stops not at a mind which can trace these relations, 
but requires one that can operate accordantly with 
them through all the ages of time, and over the 
largest sweep of worlds. Is the dead earth, then, 
such a mathematician, or is the body suspended 
above it such a calculative and executive mind? 
That such matchless skill and peerless energy are 
present none doubts. But where are they seated? 
In matter? Then matter is mind. In an agent? 
Then behold the direct action of God in every 
movement of nature. Let none imagine that God 
has empowered matter to do all this is a solution 
of the problem. The thing is impossible. Matter, 
as such, can not be empowered to do this. It must 
first pass over from its own dominions to that of 
mind; that is, it must retain its own nature, and 
at the same time cease to be what it is. Now, the 
performing of this contradiction is not an object of 
power, though that power be omnipotent. So sure, 
then, as matter can not be mind while it remains 
matter, it can not act like mind and be what it is. 
To speak, therefore, of God's empowering matter to 
achieve the loftiest functions of mathematical mind, 



88 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

is a gross perversion of thought, and a downright 
perversion of language. We speak with emphasis— 
the fact must not escape us — that there can be no 
middle ground : either what belongs to mere matter 
can perform all these mental functions, or the posi- 
tion that they are not the direct action of God must 
be abandoned. We can not permit the question to 
be obscured by loosely supposing that God may 
carry on the processes of nature so indirectly as to 
justify the language, ^' It is done by instruments." 
The instruments contended for are of the same class 
of inert things as the objects on which they are 
supposed to act. The demand is equally imperious 
for the immediate action of God to produce any 
change in nature, whether you place nothing or ten 
thousand instruments between that change and his 
hand. The tenth or ten-thousandth instrument can 
no more act than the first, or than the mass on 
which it is alleged to operate. The broad fact 
glaring on every observer is, that changes take 
place every moment around us w^hich nothing but 
mind can efi"ect. It is too palpable to admit of 
proof that contrivances — adapting means to ends — 
are before us on the largest scale. If matter can 
do this, it is capable of any thing w^e ascribe to 
God. He may be matter, or it may be God. In- 
ertness has ever been deemed an essential property 
of matter. This certainly excludes all action and 
all motion from being a property of the same sub- 
stance. Take a single instance of contrivance^ as a 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 89 

specimen of millions with wbicli nature is crowded, 
wliich requires ever-operative intelligence and ex- 
ecutive power. From the deposited seed shoots are 
thrown out so that one portion goes downward to 
form the roots, and the other upward to develop 
in the future plant. A failure in either of these 
arrangements would annihilate vegetation. Is the 
seed aware of this? Has it the precautionary- 
power to guard against it? Are the light, heat, 
and moisture aware of the functions of their office 
m the growth of this plant? Do they act in con- 
scious concert in nicely combining their proportions 
with far-seeing reference to the end? Do they 
direct their operations w^ith a skill so profound 
that the trunk, the boughs, the leaves, the fruit, 
are so provided for as to have their relative pro- 
portions, and the nutriment never miss its way to 
the leaves instead of the fruit? Here are betrayed 
the workings of mind. Where is it seated? In 
these material properties? Then matter is no more 
matter. It has parted with every one of its proper- 
ties; it has leaped the mighty gulf which divided 
it from mind; it has become one of those Godlike 
beings which are self-active. 

This illustration of random choice is even less 
striking than those which multiply in their complica- 
tions as we pierce below the mere surface of nature. 
Let none, then, mistake the conceded fact, that God 
contrived and put in operation the mundane system, 
for the question before us. Who continues its opera- 



90 .LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

tions ? If we know any thing of the operations of 
mind in the universe, do we not find them here? Is 
this mind in matter, or in an agent foreign to mat- 
ter? This demand for a living agent will continue 
to be evaded unless it be kept full in our view — un- 
less we sternly require the direct conclusion, that 
all this thinking, operative agency must be exer- 
cised by matter alone, or by Mind on the throne of 
the universe. This will enable us to rebuke, as by 
the blast of a trumpet, that philosophy w^hich nom- 
inally places G-od at the helm of the world's affairs, 
but really throv/s between him and his creatures 
such a train of agencies as utterly to cut them off 
fromi his supervision. This philosophy concedes that 
the ocean and the earth are kept in being by the 
Divine power, but it denies that power any direct 
agency in the shower that rises from the one and 
fertilizes the other. The cause of this must be 
sought in such agents as the law of evaporation, the 
absorbing power of the air, and the condensing proc- 
esses of the wind. Thus all these proximate causes 
of the rain conspire to produce it by their own self- 
directing agency, and God is excluded as a cause. 
In this very same manner is the ever-present God 
exiled from all the other operations of nature, so as 
to make them strictly self- directed. 

That loose hypothesis which ascribes to God a 
general control over his universe, while it denies to 
him an agency in all the particular functions of na- 
ture^ has in it the elements of self-subversion. Is 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 91 

it possible that the whole can be under the direct 
agency of God, and yet no part of it be under that 
agency? — that this can be true of the system, and 
yet untrue of every element composing the system? 
How can God control nature in the aggregate of its 
processes, and yet every law by which these proc- 
esses go on be independent of him? Can the whole 
be any thing but the aggregate of its parts? Ee- 
move all these, and you dissipate the whole. If no 
systerti can exist in the absence of its parts, God can 
not act on the whole without acting on each of its 
parts. Apply the principle to our species. How 
can God act on the whole race without acting on 
every nation? or on a single nation without includ- 
ing individuals? It must, then, be as true that 
God acts on every atom of the globe, as that he 
acts on the entire mass which these atoms compose. 
It must be as true that he superintends every indi- 
vidual man, as that he does the entire race. It 
must be no less certain of every particle of my 
body, than of my whole body — of all the dew-drops 
of the morning, than of the earth and ocean from 
which they were exhaled. This position is entirely 
untouched by any multiplication of second causes 
between the agent and the effect. If these amount 
to ten thousand, God must be no less in the last 
than in the first — no less in all the intermediate 
ones than in the two extremes. He acts in the last 
no less than if none preceded it. He acts in the 
creature in the very event which was supposed to 



92 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

supersede his action. Not only is tliis entire chain 
of events upheld by his omnipotence, but he lives 
and acts along on every link composing it. 

What is usually called the operations of nature 
must, then, really be the uniform action of God. By 
this is not intended the result of God's former agency, 
or of his occasional agency, or of his indirect agency, 
or of his partial agency; but of such an agency as 
was requisite to the creating of something out of 
nothing. So that, in the same sense and with the 
same force, we affirm that without creating power 
what is could never have been, we maintain that, 
without the continued action of the same power, 
what is could never continue to be. Therefore, 
there can be no more room for something to inter- 
vene between God's present act in preserving na- 
ture and nature itself, than there could have been 
between his creating acts and the world he crea,ted. 

If, then, any middle ground is utterly impossible 
between the direct action of God in each movement 
of nature and the purely mechanical theory, our 
faith must be entire in one or the other. If the 
machine of the universe has been constructed to 
operate with mechanical power — if it be self-regu- 
lative and self-preserving, then the circle circum- 
scribing all created things excludes from them a 
God. But if mere matter be not replenished with 
these highest functions of mind, then all its move- 
ments, over the whole sweep of the universe, are 
those of the Infinite Deity. Nor can the truth of 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 93 

tins conclusion be impaired by that analogy insti- 
tuted between tlie maker of a clock and the Artificer 
of the world. ''When the former has finished his 
machine, it will continue measuring time after the 
maker of it has retired to his grave. Why may 
not the mundane clock execute the purposes of its 
Builder after he has retired from it?" By proving 
this analogy to be utterly false, we shall thereby 
neutralize the argument drawn from it. What, 
then, is the whole work of the clock-maker? Sim- 
ply to modify the action of existing force by a new 
arrangement of the known properties of matter. 
What is the work of the World-Maker? It is to so 
act on every atom of matter that its properties and 
the force that attends it may not cease. In making 
the clock of the world go, then, God must inces- 
santly supply that very force without which the 
clock of art would be motionless as death. Is it, 
then, possible to conceive of two things more radi- 
cally unlike than the demand of these two machines 
for the continued agency of their fabricators? If 
the constructed clock runs solely because Grod's 
agency acts on all its materials, how can it follow 
that the processes of nature would go on were his 
agency withdrawn from the system ? It is, then, a 
grand sophism to reason from the movements of the 
clock, in its contriver's absence, to the movements 
of nature in its Creator's absence. 

The UNIFORMITY with which the Divine will acts 
on nature has allured inquirers into the belief that 



94 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

this action is mechanical. But does not our mental 
structure prove us gifted with powers to pierce the 
vail which uniforvi action draws over the Agent 
which acts ? Because the course of action witnessed 
among human agents is often fitful and changing, is 
it modest to transfer similar mutations to the ac- 
tion of the Infinite Agent f Does the objector really 
conceive that to produce the uniformity which na.- 
ture presents from age to age, it was needful the 
whole mass should be one vast machine ?— that it 
was more difficult for God to act uniformly than for 
him to construct a complicated system to act so? 
Aside from the absolute impossibility of thus making 
a material system self-active, how would its being 
so relieve Omnipotence? Is not uniform and all- 
pervading action as easy for him whose infinity pre- 
cludes this and all other comparison? Had G-od 
made the mundane system capable of all the func- 
tions which we know to be discharged in its move- 
ments, it would be the brightest intelligence that 
has ever flourished within the circle of the sun. 
The peerless sagacity with which it adapts means to 
ends, proves it capable of the highest moral func- 
tions for which created intellects are formed. Such 
absurdities must be embraced, or the incessant ac- 
tion of God on nature must be admitted. For the 
vain conclusion must be abandoned, that God has 
thrust something in between himself and the ma- 
terial universe. Were that something matter, the 
case is not relieved; it remains powerless as the 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 95 

mass it is supposed to move. Were it mind, then 
we have reached the Supreme whom we seek, but 
nothing between him and his works. 

Nor can it be validly objected that to refer the 
regular movements of nature to the uniform action 
of God, is to remove all ground of confidence in the 
stability of nature. We demand with emphasis, 
Why does the uniform operation of the Divine Will 
furnish a feebler foundation for instruction from the 
experience of the past, and for confidence in what 
reposes in the bosom of the future, than would the 
most rigid mechanical structure of the universe? 
Can infinite energies and skill find greater embar- 
rassment in continued, uniform action, than in con- 
structing a machine to perform such action? This 
doctrine of the unremitting agency of God on every 
atom of the universe, leaves scope for him to vary 
his operations as the exigencies of his kingdom may 
require — to work both within and beyond the broad 
compass of his usual operations. This view also 
presents a miracle in a most intense and imposing 
light. As that consists in a suspension of the so- 
called laws of nature, if these laws are God's action, 
then, as no power in the universe short of Omnipo- 
tence can suspend them, every miracle wrought to 
authenticate a Divine message must be the Al- 
mighty's work. Our principle discriminates with 
the utmost precision between the Divine agency in 
nature and in a miracle. It does not ascribe a 

miracle to the hand of God, and the operations of 

9 



96 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

nature to a constitution which God gave it when he 
created it; but it makes the one his ordinary action, 
and the other his extraordinary action. It requires 
a miracle to be viewed, not as a suspension or in- 
version of some wheel in the complicated system of 
instruments so as to peril the regularity of its fu- 
ture movements, but merely the operation of G-od in 
a direction differing from that in which he other- 
wise unceasingly acts. It repudiates as preposterous 
the idea that a miracle is a sudden act of Jehovah's 
newly-awakened energies, which, after the slumber 
of ages, have just been summoned into requisition — 
that God suddenly arrested in its movements the 
clock-work of the universe, Avhich ao-es as-o he had 
wound up to run through all time without his fur- 
ther interference. It is not within the narrow 
sphere of a few miracles that the Infinite Hand is 
in operation, but through that broad range which 
the golden compass of creative skill had prescribed 
to the universe. 

The teachings of the Scriptures so entirely har- 
monize with this view of providence as to give it 
the highest possible authority. They teach us, in a 
thousand varying forms, that ''God upholds all 
things by the word of his power." I^Tot by mechan- 
ical laws which could act in his absence — not by 
powerless instruments, inert as the masses on which 
they are assumed to act — not by the constitution 
of nature, as though the mere mode of its existence 
were the power that preserved its being; but by 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. \)7 

that stupendous energy, at whose bidding all things 
arose from total emptiness. As an object falls at 
the withdrawal of the hand which sustained it, so, 
it is here intimated, would the creation sink were 
Infinite energies withdrawn which now support it. 
Thus, when we speak of God's intimate presence, 
vastly more is intended than the limitless diffusion 
of his essence. This all-pervading infinity is a ne- 
cessity of his nature, but the exertion of power is a 
matter of volition, and it is the universality of this 
exertion which is here afiirmed. We should, then, 
mark with thrilling interest the relations sustained 
by ourselves, and by our Author, to the material 
universe. In this we meet him, as he is never ab- 
sent from one particle of it — as its movements are 
his action. He perpetually addresses even our 
senses. Not only is he in the sun, in whose ra- 
diancy worlds are bathing — in the stars, that have 
for ages glittered on the mantle of light — in our 
globe, which has swallowed a hundred generations — 
but in the nearest and minutest objects around us. 
He acts on the walls which inclose us, on the seats 
which we occupy, on the garments that cover us. 
He acts in every object we touch, in every sight we 
see, in every souiid we hear. He acts on all the 
limbs of our bodies, in every particle composing 
them, in every globule of blood which courses 
through them, in every breath of air giving vital- 
ity to that fluid. The presence and action of God 
are not here asserted figuratively , but literally. He 



98 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

acts on every particle composing my frame as liter- 
ally and really as I act in opening and closing my 
hand. If, then, we thus live in his never-reposing 
energies — if these surround us as do the ocean waters 
their inhabitants — if they act through us as does 
the sunlight through the air — then have we no ar- 
ticle of property, no companion in life, so near us as 
God — then may we as readily escape from ourself as 
from him. Though we do not see him, or feel him, 
or hear him, our certainty of his presence is no less 
absolute than if, by pressure, by voices, visions, he 
addressed all our senses — no less than if we saw 
him as we do the glories of the noon — no less than 
if we felt him as we do the embraces of a friend, or 
heard him as we do the thunder of the clouds. 
With what repugnancy, then, should we spurn 
away that pernicious dogma which places God at an 
unapproachable distance from man, so that more 
than the visible heavens separates him from his 
earthly orphans! How profound, then, should be 
our reverence — how hallowed our emotions — how 
unintermitting our obedience I 

Having discussed the subject of Divine agency in 
its relation to irresponsible nature, v/e next inquire 
INTO THE Divine Relations to Moral Agents. 

It is inherent in perfect governments to vary as 
do the classes of subjects under its sway. The in- 
organic mass, the vegetable organism, irrational 
brutes, and thinking men, could never be grouped 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 99 

together under the same laws. That Divine force, 
which we have explicitly connected with irresponsi- 
ble nature, can never reign over probationary mind. 
That these two classes of beings require a govern- 
ment dissimilar as the natures that compose them, 
strikes us with the light of intuitive vision. There 
is, indeed, one point at which the Divine agency is 
identical in its relation to mind and matter. That 
point is preservation. The demand for supporting 
power is exactly equal in both; it is absolute in 
both. Mind, no more than matter, has any coop- 
erating agency in its continued existence. The in- 
trinsic energy of mind does not lie at the point of 
preservation; here it is no less powerless than mat- 
ter. Omnipotence, therefore, acts alone, no less in 
preserving mind than in keeping matter in being. 
But the work of mere preservation is the point at 
which the ways of Providence divide in governing 
these two substances — mind and matter. In con- 
trolling the latter. Divine power is no less absolute 
than in bringing something out of nothing. In 
governing the former, it consults that inherent prin- 
ciple of self-action without which mind could not be 
mind. 

But to avoid a ruinous blunder at the very 
threshold of the discussion, let us distinguish be- 
tween the extent and the nature of mental action. 
Though it is absolutely essential to mind to be self- 
originating in its sphere of action, yet that sphere 
is contracted within narrow and impassable limits. 



100 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

It would be alien to its powers and relations for our 
mind to be free from tbe control of commanding 
authority and corresponding obligations. This free- 
dom appertains only to the Mind iVlraighty. Nor 
is ours free from the moral imbecility superinduced 
by sin. To glorified spirits exulting in light this 
freedom belongs. Nor have we immunity from the 
sufferings of mortality. This invests only unfallen 
mind. Nor have we freedom to act independent of 
OCCASIONAL causes. To whatever other mind this 
independence may belong, it is not the prerogative 
of human mind. But the freedom of the soul 
reaches precisely to that limit which measures its 
obligations. Beyond that it can not go with all 
the supernatural aid afforded it by the atonement. 
Short of that it can not be restricted without 
making its obligations an injustice. By heedfully 
computing these restrictions, we shall find the fixed 
limits beyond which Providence never operates for- 
cibly on human agents. Between that agency, re- 
stricted by these limits, in governing mind, and 
that which preserves mind in existence, there lies 
a gulf too vast for our intellect to span. Though 
all our searchings may be baified to ascertain the 
precise point at which God's and man's agency meet 
in human action, no uncertainty shades the terri- 
tory which divides between self-action and in- 
strumental ACTION. 

A large class of philosophic theologians, both of 
scholastic ages and modern times, have so grouped 



^ 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 101 

together all tlie agents and instruments in the uni- 
verse as to make them sustain essentially the same 
relation to the Supreme Agent. The immense skill 
and erudition which have been tasked from age to 
age to defend this position, evince its intrinsic dif- 
ficulty, and the array against it of the common con- 
victions of the race. This far-reaching question of 
ages, whether the human mind be self active, like 
the Divine Mind, should have long since had an 
afiirmative adjustment. 

When it shall become deeply fixed in our convic- 
tions that any middle way between an instrument 
and an agent is an impossibility, a tenable position 
will be easy of attainment. It will then appear, 
with intuitive clearness, that man is a mere instru- 
ment, or that he is, in the proper sense, an agent. 
If an instrument, then confessedly irresponsible; if 
an agent, then in the highest sense author of his 
own acts. Most that have ascribed to him the 
former character, have done so from a misconcep- 
tion of his relations to occasional causes. They 
have identified his volitions with his sensibilities. 
And as all men know that their emotions and de- 
sires arise, in spite of them, from the fixed relation 
God has given of the inward and outward systems, 
these mental states can indicate not a shadow of 
agency in man. The removal of all distinction, 
then, between the volitions and sensibilities, is the 
annihilation of all agency. But that true psychology 
which makes the volitions of the mind its only ex- 



102 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

ecutive power, restores the Godlike faculty of self- 
action to man. If our dependence on occasional 
causes for action leaves untouched the self-origin- 
ating power of action, then should it assuredly 
never be substituted for that power, or in any 
possible way be allowed to interfere with it. 

If there be in the whole universe no power out 
of mind, and no mind without power, then the ab- 
sence of power is the great gulf dividing between 
the universe of matter and the universe of mind. 
To the one belongs the susceptibility of being acted 
upon by energy from beyond itself; to the other, to 
act from within its own resources. This spontaneity 
of action belongs to men, angels, God — to the en- 
tire universe of mind. Whatever is without this 
is thereby excluded from the grand inclosure of 
mind. It is of necessity, and to eternity, within the 
dominion of matter. Did not this self-action belong 
to mind, nothing had ever been. Mind was when 
nothing else was. If it ever acted, therefore, it 
must have done so without foreign influence, as all 
else was then out of being. Nor would any action 
in the universe ever have been possible were it not 
intrinsic to mind to act. As that which can not 
act of itself can never act at all, but only be acted 
upon, were it not in mind to act, as it can be in 
nothing else to act, all action would have been 
impossible, and total emptiness would now reign 
alone. 

But the question may arise, whether all differences 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 103 

between created and uncreated mind should thus be 
merged in this grand distinction — self-activity of 
mind? If self-activity belongs to all minds, then 
whatever distinctions exist in the created and un- 
created minds, they leave this the property of man 
no less than if he were like God in all other re- 
spects. We know nothing, for example, of that 
peculiarity called self -existence. This, which is 
the foundation of that incommunicable attribute — 
eternity — can belong to no other. And were it true 
of ten thousand other Divine perfections, how would 
that affect self -activity, common to all mind? De- 
pendence is inseparable from created mind — inde- 
pendence from the creating mind. But dependence 
for continued being can in no way be related to 
independence in action while being lasts. Our con- 
tinued existence is no less an effect of omnipotence 
than was our first existence; and as it is an essen- 
tial quality of every effect to be passive, how can 
that affect the spontaneity of our action? The cir- 
cumstance of God's preserving the mind is no other- 
wise related to self-activity than self-preservation 
would have been. The preserved mind and the 
preserving mind have, therefore, the power of self- 
action — a property common to both, as it is essential 
to all mind. The dependence of our mind, therefore, 
at a point where passivity is the only possible state 
of any being, can have no conceivable relations to 
that state of mind where activity must be its own. 
A clear conception of the necessary truth that one 



104 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

agency from its nature excludes all other agencies 
from every act which is its OAvn, will convince us 
that the power of our action is entirely within us. 
The contradiction of moMng an agent act can not 
transpire within the range of omnipotence itself. 
When Calvin and his school make the volitions of 
man to be his own^ and also to be produced by 
Omnipotence, they overlooked this obvious principle, 
that a volition could from its nature belong to none 
but to the mind producing it. If a volition be merely 
the inind acting, does not its very nature exclude 
all other agents from its production except the mind 
that wills? Can more cloudless certainty be in any 
axiom than that nothing but power can act; and 
that this ceases to be power at the point where it 
is overpowered? To speak, therefore, of makmg 
an agent act is utter confusion of ideas, and the 
grossest perversion of language. Of this power 
of originating volition we have the same evidence 
which attends all first principles — not the certainty 
of consciousness, but the evidence of original sug- 
gestion. Every man is conscious of mental oxtion; 
by the structure of his mind he refers the action to 
the perceiving agent. Let him attempt a thousand 
times to refer it to another — it is out of his power. 
His Creator, then, necessitates self-eecogxition 
in determining the actor. Can there be, therefore, 
within the precincts of mind another first principle 
m.ore firmly fixed at the basis of human knowledge? 
Is there not upon me the same constitutional neces- 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 105 

sity of referring my inward acts to viyself as of re- 
ferring any quality to a substance, or any event to 
a cause? The incontestable conclusion is, that the 
Supreme Agent never produces the acts of subor- 
dinate agents — that he never does it directly or 
indirectly, in whole or in part, by the agency of 
others, by any array of motives, or by any other 
thing or being in the universe. 

Is it alleged that the proof is equally invincible 
that God produces all human acts ; that we should 
never reject one of these two propositions, because 
we are unable to perceive the harmony of both; 
"that, therefore, we are bound to believe both that 
man is a free agent and that God produces all his 
volitions?" Never was there a sophism coiled in 
so brief a statement more summarily subservient to 
error. There are a thousand examples in the Bible 
in which the point of harmony between two ideas 
lies beyond our mental compass. But what has 
this to do with contradictions? The darkness of 
mystery covers the former — the light of evidence 
shows the conflict of the latter. The distinction is 
so glaring between unperceived harmony and direct 
opposition in ideas, that the one will be the expe- 
rience of all created mind forever, and the other 
has no existence but in misconception. This is pre- 
cisely the distinction between the alleged and the 
real state of the case before us. The difficulty is 
not in being unable to show how it is so, but in 
clearly perceiving that it is impossible to be so. 



106 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

By thus confounding simple obscurity with palpable 
contradiction, error has escaped detection, and truth 
has languished under the most unjust imputations. 
"\Ye protest against placing at eternal odds these 
immutable principles of truth. It is authorizing a 
test by which the highest verities may be brought 
into doubt, and the most repugnant principles in- 
dicated as truths. 

In passing, a glance at least must be taken at the 
objection found in God's foreknov/ledge against man's 
freedom. This was urged by the school of necessi- 
tarians, both of the fifth century and of the six- 
teenth century. They alleged that ''the foreknowl- 
edge of God precluded the possibility of freedom 
in the will of man; that this certainty of events 
could never allow of their occurring otherwise; that, 
therefore, man's freedom in acting, and God's fore- 
knowledge of his acts, could never both be true." 
Have the distinguished advocates of this binding 
influence of God's knowledge on man's powders ap- 
plied their principle through the whole range of its 
legitimate bearings? Have they traced it to not 
only whatever is done by man, or angel, or devil, 
but to every possible achievement of Almighty God 
himself? Can it be doubted whether the Infinite 
Mind knows its own volitions? Must not that 
knowledge bind him with the same fetters with 
which it necessitates every human volition? The 
sphere of the Divine knowledge being infinite, it 
must have included all the acts of his omnipotence. 



DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. 107 

even when that had no field for action but tliat 
mind itself. Do its advocates perceive that they 
thus dethrone Omnipotence — that they reduce the 
great God to a mere instrument of foreign power? 
They can not be permitted to rest in a partial ap- 
plication of this desolating principle. It must have 
influence no where, or it must sweep over all the 
conceivable agencies in the universe. It must leave 
man free, or it must have bound his Maker from 
eternity. Had these fearful bearings of God's fore- 
knowledge suggested themselves to Luther, he could 
never have pronounced it "a thunderbolt to dash 
to atoms man's free will." The fallacy of this con- 
clusion, from the certainty of events which God's 
foreknowledge of them secures to him, should be 
clearly exposed. The fallacy lies in confounding 
causal necessity with axiomatical necessity. The 
former consists in a producing power; the latter, 
in the impossibility of an event cotemporaneously 
being in two opposite states. The one regards the 
agency by which it was brought about; the other, 
merely the fact of its being as it is. The one con- 
nects the event with its cause; the other has not 
the remotest reference to cause. To confound these 
two most dissimilar kinds of necessity, which are 
no more alike than the order of ideas and an act 
of creation, can not but result in fallacious conclu- 
sions. This clear perception between what causes 
an event and what necessitates it to not he some- 
thing else after it has occurred, will divest perfect 



108 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

knowledge of the event of every shadow of causal 
relation to it. 

The proper agency of man and the causal neces- 
sity of his volitions are viutually exdusive. What- 
ever evidence evinces the presence of one proves 
the absence of the other. All the claims of God, 
solemnly urged upon man in the Divine Word, 
make the grand assumption that it is he, not his 
Maker, which is to act. This entire class of Divine 
assumption, involved in every written w^ord uttered 
from heaven, is the highest conceivable proof of the 
principle assumed. The mode, therefore, in which 
Divine Providence operates on the human mind, in 
all its actings, is totally unlike that in which it 
directs irresponsible beings. It acts on mind by 
gentle incentives, surrounding it by miotives like 
circles of conflicting advisers. But if the world of 
mind and the world of matter are thus plp.ced from 
each other, at a distance w^hich can never be re- 
moved or diminished — if the former be invested 
wuth a power like God, and the latter be no less 
without it than nonentity itself — if one can know 
itself and the mighty Agent which kindled its 
powers into intellectual being, and the other know 
not even its own existence — how much more does 
mind than matter deserve the ever-active care of 
Providence? All the evidence proving God's con- 
stant agency on matter must avail to show his care 
of mind, as what is unconscious must have been 
made and preserved for that which is conscious. 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 109 

As we have just seen, God actually pervades all 
the system — that he is in all hight and all depth — 
in what is vast and in what is minute — in the float- 
ing atom and in the rolling world — in the fall of 
the sparrow to the ground and in the spheres of 
the mundane system — in the life of the insect of a 
day and in all the animal tribes that people the 
globe; as we have shown this stupendous care 
ramifies all these extremes, how can it be absent 
from those for whom this physical system was con- 
structed? Beings glowing in their Maker's image 
can not be abandoned of his never-sleeping care to 
perpetual orphanage. 

Let us, then, examine the scope of his Provi- 
dence, as exercised toward us in the variety of the 
human character and condition. 

Though every man's action belongs entirely to 
himself no less than if he were self-sustaining, the 
results of his actions belong to an economy which 
operated before he existed. That the thoughts, 
feelings, volitions, and affairs of men, are under 
the inspecting and guiding care of God, the Scrip- 
tures, combining with the nature of moral govern- 
ment, make indubitable. The aeronaut may retain 
his weight or cast it down, but he can not control 
the rate of speed at which it shall fall, or the effects 
it shall produce in what it strikes. The act of cast- 
ing it down was his — the laws governing its fall 
were God's. The principle illustrated by this is 
universal in its application. The agent is sole 



110 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES, 

author of liis acts, but Providence modifies their 
bearings. This principle is every-where exemplified 
in the graphic stories of the Jewish patriarchs, in 
the inspired history of the judges and kings of 
Israel, and in the picture, divinely drawn, of the 
prominent actors in the New Testament. Had the 
history of other nations been sketched by the same 
Heaven-guided hand, in its most striking exhibitions 
would be found the recognition of the same prin- 
ciple. Such a history of the race would trace the 
Divine Hand, not alone in the destruction of Car- 
thage being occasioned by the sight of a fig in the 
Senate of Eome, or the detection of the gunpowder 
plot by the finding of a lost letter, but in rearrang- 
ing the entire train of human transactions, and in 
giving to it a new direction. The fact that such 
an agency presides over the ordinary business aflairs 
of men is clearly assumed by St. James, where he 
teaches that, in matters of mere traffic, ''Ye ought 
to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this 
or that." The same principle of G-od's controlling 
human events is involved in the Divine assurance 
of answer to prayer. This, in a thousand instances, 
supposes the bestowment of that on the suppliant 
which he would not otherwise receive. Did not the 
Supreme Agency control all events, how could this 
assurance be true ? How could he suspend their par- 
ticular application on the free act of his servants' 
prayers? How could he do this through the whole 
range of the millions of his supplicating creatures? 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. Ill 

Is it, then, objected that ''this arrays the com- 
mon administration of God in the character of a con- 
tinued miracle?" This is true in a single aspect, 
but not so as to give any force to the objection. 
The power that preserves our existence — that an- 
swers our prayers for temporal benefits, and that 
works miracles for the establishing of a religion, 
clothes the same Agent, and is exercised with the 
same directness. But this identity in the Agent 
and directness in his operations leave scope for all 
needful distinction in these various departments of 
Divine action. The work of preservation, consisting 
in God's incessant action, makes no demand for his 
departure from uniformity of action. The work of 
answering prayer, in controlling some external 
events in the suppliant's behalf, is action by a Hand 
so concealed as not seeming to depart from its uni- 
form mode of action. A miracle is God suspending 
his usual operations, and acting, in that instance, in 
another direction, to certify, for a great public pur- 
pose, his direct interference. The variety of the 
Divine action, therefore, in these three different 
spheres, exactly corresponds to the variety of ob- 
jects had in view. These objects being continued 
existence, the encouragement of piety, and the au- 
thentication of a new religion, all demand direct 
Divine agency, but that agency diversified in its 
mode of acting so as to answer respectively these 
ends. The first purpose — preservation — is carried 

on with so entire a uniformitv as to vail the power 

10 



112 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

which acts. The second — the support of piety— is 
performed with a skill which conceals any marked 
arrest in the current of affairs. The third — the 
authentication of new truth — strikes the senses of 
men with an overpowering conviction of God's 
agency in the event. The directness of the action 
and the identity of the Agent, in these three spheres, 
can, by no means, occasion any clashing in the ob- 
jects. Did supernatural agency often exert itself in 
the form of miracles, the purposes of society could 
not fail to be frustrated. For example, were the 
day frequently to be prolonged, as by Joshua— bread 
often to be multiplied, as by our Lord— or the dead 
numerously to be raised, as the widow's son, the 
settled principles of social life would be ruinously 
shaken. The alarming disturbance in the settled 
order of nature would introduce confusion in the 
seasons, and peril the harvests of every clime; or 
the incentives to diligence would be utterly want- 
ing, and the chill of apathy reduce society to a 
stagnant mass ; or the care of life would be fearfully 
abandoned, and persons so numerously disappear 
that the pangs of the surviving and the waste of 
society would become insupportable. But the im- 
portance of each of these spheres of Divine action 
remaining distinct, can create not the slightest ob- 
stacle to the directness of that action. 

In accordance with this directness of God's agency 
in all these departments, are the unequivocal ascrip- 
tions of his Word. These no more exclude his hand 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 113 

from the ordinary movements of nature, or from tlie 
common events of life, than from the most over- 
whelming displays of miraculous agency. They ar- 
range all the movements and all the elements of the 
universe in one grand array of instrumentalities, 
instinct with no life but his action. If these run 
on his messages — fulfill his commandments — execute 
his counsels, they operate only as instruments. If 
the falling shower supplies the thirsty fields, it is 
our '^Father in heaven who sends it on the just and 
unjust." If the valleys smile with verdure, it is 
''God that clothes the grass of the field." Does the 
diurnal revolution bring to us the sweet vicissitudes 
of day and night? ''It is he that turns the shadow 
of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark 
with night." When the fearful powers of nature 
are at war, "Flames of fire are his messengers, and 
stormy winds fulfill his word." 

By another class of Scriptures, the Infinite agency 
is made equally direct in the most ordinary events 
of individual life. If I languish in sickness, I am 
assured "that the rod of God is upon me." Is my 
guidance safe through the labyrinth of perplexing 
events? It is in harmony with that comprehensive 
promise, "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he 
will direct thy paths." Do mountainous calamities 
press me down past my power of endurance ? Point- 
ing me to his ever-active agency, God says, "Call 
on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver 
thee." Then, "thou shalt not be afraid of the pest- 



114 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

ilence that walketli in the darkness, nor for the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday." 

ISTor can it be urged that these explicit assur- 
ances of interference with our ordinary events be- 
long to the miraculous portion of the Jewish econo- 
my; for the very same agency is recognized in the 
Christian Scriptures. They are replete with pas- 
sages which teach the doctrine involved in the assur- 
ance that God numbers the hairs of our heads, so that 
one can not drop from its place without his notice. 
Why are good men forbidden to indulge carking 
care for to-morrow ? Because their Heavenly Father 
careth for them. That is, his care for them extends 
to their little Avants of to-morrow. The inspired ex- 
pressions here grouped together in the first class, 
are clearly expressive of God's agency in the most 
ordinary processes of nature — in the successive re- 
currence of day and night, and in those similar 
movements in the material system, which have ever 
been uniform since the creation arose. Those in the 
second class show, with the clearness of light, that 
every event in the good man's history is under the 
immediate control of Almighty Power. And such 
as the third class represents exhibit the manner in 
which devout prayer modifies the Infinite counsels 
toward earnest suppliants. But not only do large 
classes of Scriptures teach this direct agency of 
Providence in these various spheres, it is required 
by the broad principles on which revelation, as a 
whole, proceeds. The abundant evidence of this. 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 115 

inherent in the nature and purposes of a revelation 
to man, might be readily educed did not our limits 
preclude the discussion. Nor can we more than 
hint at the demand of government, for this direct 
agency, on the perfections of the Governor. These 
are such as not only to prove them adequate to 
such agency, but as to show the government defect- 
ive without it. So deeply is the Divine omniscience 
stamped with infinity, as to make the withholding 
of God's knowledge from any object an impossibility. 
The greatest — the smallest in the whole chain of 
being, with all the intermediate links of that chain, 
must be naked and open to that broad and piercing 
eye. Omnipresence — the universal diffusion of God's 
essence — equally precludes his absence from any ex- 
isting thing; and such are his governmental rela- 
tions as never to be an inactive spectator. His al- 
mightiness is eternal security against fatigue by any 
amount of incessant care and effort. Power without 
limits must be without exhaustion. JSTor is there a 
moral perfection of the Divine nature which does 
not call into requisition these natural attributes in 
the exercise of this direct agency. 

Can a being, glowing in the full-orbed splendor 
of such perfections — perfections all radiant with 
holiness — fail to manage the events of the universe, 
to counteract sin, and bring in an everlasting right- 
eousness? To Jehovah sin is infinitely hateful, and 
would never have broken in on the order of his 
government, but for the self-perversion of created 



116 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

agents. Nor would the loathsome monster survive 
an hour, but for the intrinsic demand of agency to 
remain unforced forever. The intense opposition of 
these two antagonisms makes it impossible that the 
''Father of lights" should not incessantly operate 
to counteract this frightful contagion of his uni- 
verse. No bound but non-interference with free- 
agency can limit that operation. 

To allege that a moral governor can see with in- 
difference the infraction of his holy law, is too shock- 
ing to require refutation. But to affirm that God 
exerts no agency in suppressing rebellion, is not less 
blasphemous. This necessity, therefore, of God's 
direct agency, in all transpired events under his 
government, arises out of the very nature of these 
perfections on which his government rests. 

As it is certain that the physical system of the 
universe runs up into the moral system, and has the 
accomplishment of its grand design in this, the evi- 
dence of direct agency in the one is the proof of it 
in the other. 

The ancient objection — a thousand times refuted — 
''that it would be unworthy of an Infinite Mind to 
occupy itself with concerns which are below the at- 
tention of a wise man," is rendered powerless by the 
simple fact that this same Mind originated these 
very objects. Can they be worthy to have occupied 
creating power, and unworthy to engage superin- 
tending care? Indeed, the fact that they are the 
fruit of that power and skill is an absolute indem- 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 117 

nity against tlieir being abandoned by the same 
Infinite Agent. How is it possible more daringly 
to impeach the Divine character, than to suppose 
our race, and the physical system to which it is 
related, abandoned by the ^'Father of spirits?" — 
than to suppose these minds, ^'made pictures of his 
own eternity," kindled into a burning desire to 
drink unceasingly at the fountain of his own bliss, 
should be cruelly cut off from his supervision? It 
requires no abstruse process to show that this rejec- 
tion of God's providence involves the overthrow of 
his justice. Convinced of this, the ancient Epicure- 
ans rejected the latter when they denied the for- 
mer. Those acute minds maintained that ^'in the 
Divine Mind there was a susceptibility of neither 
favor nor anger." Modern Epicureans, far less con- 
sistent, embrace the moral character of God, while 
they reject the only cogent evidence that any such 
character invests him. How can a single moral 
perfection adorn the Supreme Mind if it never in- 
terpose to favor virtue, or to discountenance vice ? — 
if it remain an indifferent spectator to the fierce 
moral conflict of the universe? How could this 
indifference be more explicitly and tremendously 
demonstrated than by such utter non-interference? 
That our nature is moral, and demands such su- 
pervision, is made indubitable by great facts in our 
constitution. These are recognized by experience 
and revelation. When the Scriptures asserted that 
''the Gentiles were a law unto themselves," they 



118 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES. 

affirmed a fact of the moral history of the whole 
species — one entirely harmonizing with universal 
experience. What generation of men was ever 
known to approve of wrong, as such; or to disap- 
prove of right, in this character? When was vice 
ever known to promote the wellbeing of man, or 
virtue to subvert his interests? This double proof 
of our moral nature, arising from our own mental 
structure, and from our unchanging relations to the 
system around us, points with equal directness to 
such a nature in the all-originating Mind. Could 
a moral nature be in us and not in him, this high- 
est tendency of our being would find, in the whole 
universe, no corresponding object. A gulf which no 
duration could brids-e would divide us from him — ■ 

o 

the discrepancy would be an eternal bar to all hu- 
man communion with God, These never-changing 
susceptibilities within us, then, must prove the 
ceaseless agency of Qod for virtue, or blaspheme his 
throne. Nor will the retributive power, which is 
so deeply seated in our physical and social constitu- 
tion, admit of any other conclusion. 

How is it possible to view the punishment ever 
inflicted by vicious habits, according to the laws of 
this twofold constitution, without finding it a fear- 
ful description of God's changeless hostility to vice? 

Some of the deepest lessons from heaven, taught 
by the invisible God, have been inculcated by acts. 
And what acts could be more expressive of the 
moral nature of God than this moral, physical, and 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 119 

social constitution, whicli lie has so deeply stamped 
on man. When, by this constitution, the offender 
is found inevitably to suffer disgrace, poverty, dis- 
ease, mental agony, or an untimely end, how could 
the Author of this structure more distinctly an- 
nounce his abhorrence of vice by the blast of a 
trumpet from heaven? 

But the direct agency of Providence is more 
strikingly visible in those sudden inflictions of high- 
handed wickedness which have smitten nations and 
individuals. Scarcely is there an ancient people, 
sunk to the grave of nations, whose history makes 
no record of some avenging stroke of Providence. 
Whole nations have also been startled by sudden 
visitations, which have arrested the dark and bloody 
career of individuals. The mysterious detection 
of crime, which had long eluded the searching eye 
of justice — the rush of vengeance on the reckless, 
while the words of blasphemy were yet scorching 
their lips — the frightful fall of tyrants, while regal- 
ing on the groans of their cherished victims — the 
tragic fate of persecutors, who, like Herod, have 
dropped by a sudden stroke from a viewless hand : 
these, and kindred interpositions, with which his- 
tory is replete — at which the boldest offenders have 
shuddered — are vouchers for an ever active Provi- 
dence. 

It is not unknown to the advocates of God's 
direct agency that its opposers have made it im- 
pugn his goodness. They have pointed to those 

11 



120 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

severe calamities which have darkened the sphere 
of man, and triumphantly demanded whether God 
is their inflictor. Is it not amazing that it should 
have escaped these objectors, that the evils of which 
they complain no less impugn Divine goodness by 
resulting from their mechanical universe than from 
the direct agency of its author? Has it not already 
been made clear as lidit that no kind or number of 
intervening instruments can diminish or even modify 
the responsibility of the cause? Does not God act 
on precisely the same principle in making the in- 
fliction by his own hand and in making it by the 
workins; of a svstem which he established thou- 
sands of years since? The sole question is, has 
God done it ? not with what degree of indirectness 
has he done it? 

As, then, the objection lies with equal force 
against the mechanical scheme as against that of 
direct agency, if it have validity at all, it strikes at 
the rectitude of Jehovah, and is purely of an infidel 
character. Xo solution is found of this problem in 
the assertion '^that these evils are the results of 
general laws, which laws are the foundation of the 
regularity of nature, and the source of numberless 
blessings to man." The light of evidence has ban- 
ished every shadow of agency iiom law, and shown 
that it is merely a uniform manner of an agent's 
action. Besides, all that the Supreme x\gent pro- 
duces has precisely the same relation to his char- 
acter and to his creatures, when mixed up with ten 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 121 

thousand other arrangements, as if remaining alone 
in eternal separation. 

But the objection is divested of all its apparent 
validity by the two great facts of man's .history, 
that he had apostatized, and that he has been 

EEDEEMED. 

If the principles be tenable which are vindicated 
in this discourse, then the inference is just that in 
the universe there are two classes of agents. These 
are the Creatoe, and the minds he has created. 
The respects in which these two classes of agents 
differ, and in which they are similar, have been 
jointly indicated. This first great Agent, pecul- 
iar in his unbeginning being, unbounded in his 
never-tiring energies, immaculate in his unborrowed 
purity, and undimmed in the glory of his harmo- 
nious perfections, was once alone. Had he continued 
alone, only bliss had been; had merely the material 
system arisen, still naught but bliss had been. An 
ability to do right is essential to the power of doing 
wrong. The former always invested the Infinite 
One; the latter can never belong to him. Of this 
HE is gloriously incapable. All moral qualities are 
ultimately tested by his perfections. For the same 
reason these never began to be, they can never cease 
to be what they are. The very idea that God could 
do wrong involves in it the abolition of the only 
test by which to determine the wrong. Could this 
first Agent — ^Hhe Ancient of Days'' — therefore, do 
wrong, there would remain in the whole universe 



122 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

no means of testing any quality of character. The 
noon of holiness and the midnight of gui*lt would 
blend their lights and shades in one homogeneous 
mass. But the eternal bar to self-perversion is 
found in the eminence of infinite perfections — the 
necessity of his nature being what it is. All acts 
are possible to him which are objects of power, but 
to break the harmony of infinite perfections is not 
such an object. The internal and absolute necessity 
of the existence of those unbeginning perfections is 
an eternal pledge to the universe of the Divine 
rectitude. Whatever, therefore, clashes with holi- 
ness has flowed from another fountain. Created 
agents must as truly be its aiitJior as God is their 
author. Not only is the reverse incapable of proof, 
but impossible to be so. As we have seen, what- 
ever evidence proves God can not sin demonstrates 
that his intelligences can; because sin is in the uni- 
verse, and none but a moral nature could have 
introduced it. 

Another conclusion authorized by these principles 
is the visihility of God's iiivisihle agency. If only 
mind can act — if there be action wherever organ- 
ized nature is — if it be such to which created mind 
is inadequate — then does the action of God inces- 
santly address our senses. This evidence is the 
same in kind as that by which we know there is 
mind in man. Were a skillful artist voiceless as 
the movements of God in nature, the progress of his 
work in the complicated machine he was construct- 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 123 

ing would leave no doubt of his mental action: just 
as little doubt of God's action is left by the work- 
ings of the great machine of nature. There his real 
action is seen — not only in the moving planets, the 
emanating sunbeams, the restricted ocean — not only 
in those giant movements working out the profound 
designs of nature— but in its minutest process, in 
every grain of sand, in every drop of the bucket, 
in every leaf of the forest, in the very microscopic 
atom; so there is no one being in nature with whose 
movements we are so conversant as with God's. 

Finally, in the light of this discussion, appears 
the guiding providence of God, by which the events 
of his universe are appropriated to his purposes. 

Though every act of each created mind belongs to 
that mind alone, the instant it transpires it passes 
from the control of the actor to that of the all- 
comprehending Mind, to be so directed by this 
Supreme Agent as to thwart the designs of the 
guilty and execute those of the pious actor. By 
this action of a never-slumbering agency the hopes 
of virtue are kindled. But for this not a moral 
excellence could have survived before the fiery flood 
of sin which for so many ages has swept over the 
globe. But, under the management of that mys- 
teriously-controlling Power which presses vice out 
of its dark direction, righteousness is destined to 
raise its beauteous form, after the depression of 
ages, amid the greetings of a disinthralled universe. 
That agency, noiseless as the wings of light, is like 



124 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

that benign element every-wliere operating unspent. 
Its immeasurable energy can be adequately symbol- 
ized by no wealth of language — by no pomp of 
figures. An angelic agency might be supposed so 
numerous as to furnish one in charge of each atom 
of matter; one for each emotion of all hearts; one 
for every thought of all intellects; one for every 
word uttered by all lips; one for each stage of 
progress throughout the dominions of nature. What 
would be the energy of this brilliant array of flam- 
ing millions compared to that which works unseen 
through all the powers and properties of the uni- 
verse ? 

All systems of ethics and philosophy which inter- 
pose the smallest space or duration between God 
and his works, when sifted to the bottom, will be 
found spurious. 

All true philosophy runs up into God, so as to 
find every event in the grasp of his hand. Every 
atom of the universe is more immediately controlled 
by him than is the body of man by his mind that 
moves it. To the same extent a hypothesis dispenses 
with this control, it approaches the midnight gulf of 
atheism; it impinges on the territory of pantheistic 
gloom; it gives to oblivion that awe and trust in- 
spired by the felt presence of the Eternal Mind. 
To those gross conceptions which confine the Infinite 
Agency to the sphere of mind, and often to the celes- 
tial abodes, is referable that semi-infidelity which 
now chills the higher grades of mind. 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 125 

When full scope shall be given to the moral in- 
stincts of our nature, under the guidance of the 
higher generalization of truth — when this sim- 
plicity of man's infancy in the world's morning, 
which made him see the action, hear the voice, 
and feel the hand of God — when this shall be 
reenthroned in our religious nature, the Church 
will become the light-house of the world. Its 
piety will be more intense, purifying, thrilling, 
aggressive. The Divine oracles will shine in their 
primitive radiancy, and exert a sway commensurate 
to their demand over the convictions of the heart. 

And now, to this ahvays active Agent, 'Hhe only 
wise God," who is in all, and through all, and over 
all, 'Ho HIM be glory, and dominion, and praise, 
forever and ever." Amen. 



IV. 
TRUTH: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCI- 
ETIES OF THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, CONCORD, 
NEW HAMPSHIRE, NOVEMBER 2, 1852. 



YouNa Gentlemen of the Literary Socie- 
ties, — The present is an anniversary occasion. It 
forces on us a retrospective glance. But our work 
of this hour is not to recall the past, how deep and 
tender soever may be its remembered scenes. What 
is stern and stirring in the deep solitude of a scholar 
can never be forgotten. What is bright and vision- 
like in the dreams of his reverie will be a lucid 
point, which will never fade from the past. But the 
occasion is devoted to a higher purpose than to 
amuse you by a fancy picture of the past, or by 
attempting to extort what still slumbers in the 
bosom of the future. 

It is other material than amusement of which the 

student's aliment consists. He demands truth — 

truth in its deepest, highest, broadest range. He 

needs to be assured, by evidence like vision, that 

the scope given to his powers is fully commensurate 

with the peerless grandeur of his destiny, and with 

127 



128 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

all those solemn purposes preparatory to that des- 
tiny. What, then, is our chosen mode of doing 
this ? It is : 

1. To ENTER WITH YOU THE FlELD OF GENERAL 

Truth. 

II. To Designate the Qualifications indis- 
pensable TO Explore that Field. And, 

III. To INDICATE THE PRESENT DeMAND ON 

Scholars to obtain these Qualifications. 

We first attempt to designate several classes of 
truth. There is in the universe necessary truth and 
contingent truth. Truth of the former class demands 
also a subdivision into such as are conditioned and 
those which are unconditioned. 

x\s a sin2;le instance to illustrate a conditioned 

o 

necessary idea, we advert to the reference we una- 
voidably make of phenomena to their substance. 
But created substance might not have existed; and 
in that event there would have been no necessary 
reference of phenomena to it, as then there could 
have been no phenomena. Thus, what was made 
unavoidable by a voluntary act, would have been 
impossible without that act. The necessity is there- 
fore a conditioned, and not an eternal one. 

2. Necessary ideas unconditioned are such as 
whose non-existence is impossible, and the concep- 
tion of whose non-existence is impossible. Such a 
truth is ever attended with absolute conviction of 
its necessity, and with a felt impossibility of sup- 
posing the contrary. So far as this class of truth 



TE,UTH. 129 

comes within our knowledge, it is self-evident. 
"What may be tlie number of necessary truths within 
the field of the universe, the contractedness of our 
powers prohibits our knowing. Though in this 
whole field there can be but one necessary being, 
there may be innumerable necessary truths. We 
know of such a truth in every attribute of God ; 
but we know neither the number of his attributes, 
or the number of such truths contained in each 
attribute. 

Both these classes of necessary truths — condi- 
tioned and unconditioned — are the logical anteced- 
ents of all contingent truths, and all phenomena nec- 
essarily refers us to those antecedents. Thus, eff'ect 
forces back to cause, quality to substance, succes- 
sion to duration, body to space. By confounding 
these phenomena with their antecedents, men have 
cut themselves ofi" from all the past, and sundered 
every tie that binds them to any other principle or 
being in the universe ; and what they have done to 
themselves they have done to all others, making 
every being and thing an isolated individual, abso- 
lutely alone amid the wild whirlings of chance. 

Contingent ideas, or truth, is that the conception 
of whose non-existence is possible. This class of 
truth pervades the entire territory over which will 
holds dominion. The term contingent is by no means 
used in opposition to certainty, but merely in oppo- 
sition to necessity. Whatever mere will has pro- 
duced might not have been. As freedom is the law 



130 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

of the will, the action of that faculty ever involves 
the possibility of the opposite. And as will is the 
only causal agent in the universe, all which has 
been produced might not have been. From many 
sources the evidence of this is furnished ; we advert 
to but one. This is found in the adaptation which 
extends through the entire system of things. Look 
at the ten thousand ties connecting the organic and 
unorganized system of beings. These are numerous, 
arbitrary, and delicate. Take a few instances : the 
ear could not produce the air, or the air the ear. 
Both could not produce the numerous and nice 
adaptatioDS evinced by all the varieties of sound. 
Nor could the eye generate the light, or the light 
the eye, or either anticipate the mysterious laws of 
vision. The construction of all animals involves 
numerous functions that presuppose the most aston- 
ishing correspondence through the vast dominion 
of material nature: such as the laws of the vege- 
tables on which they subsist — of the air which is 
vital to them; the law of gravity regulating their 
circulation, which is modified by every pound weight 
of our globe, and by every ounce of the central 
sun, and every rod's distance of the one from the 
other. Take a single instance more from what is 
palpable in every man's own constitution. I allude 
to the various kinds of sensibility with which each 
nerve acting in the senses is endowed : thus, the 
nerve of touch is insensible to the light. The nerve 
of the eye is sensible to nothing else but light. In- 



TRUTH. 131 

deed, tliis arbitrary arrangement has been made in 
nervous sensibility in every sense we possess. Does 
not this wide variety of adaptations overwhelmingly 
demonstrate the absence of all necessity, and the 
dominion of sovereign will, and thus prove the con- 
tingency of this entire class of truth ? 

Next to this class of truth may be adduced that 
consisting of axioms, or first principles. These are 
distinguished by being the basis of all reasoning, 
the foundation of every possible science. All that 
is luminous in the mightiest argument, all that 
radiancy in which the most splendid science glows, 
shine in these first principles. Their light is there 
or nowhere. Such principles lie at the bottom, not 
of one science, but of all sciences. In geometry we 
recognize them in such axioms as this : '^ Things 
equal to the same thing are equal to one another." 
But they substantially belong to all other sciences. 
Instance that of logic : " Where two terms agree 
with one and the same thing, they agree with one 
another." 

So then, we say that first principles, with various 
modifications, are equally applicable and indispens- 
able to all sciences. The light of evidence showing 
their truthfulness is in themselves. The proof of it 
is found in the fact that all men admit them, act on 
them, and reason from them. That skepticism which 
doubts them can prove nothing, nor can it disprove 
any thing ; as both these depend entirely on that 
very truthfulness which it denies. Skepticism, 



132 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

therefore, is doomed to expire by tliat very wound 
by which, its victim falls. 

From this view of axiomatic principles we pass 
to glance at the distinction between objective and 
subjective truth. That which is subjective lies solely 
within the precincts of the mind itself. That which 
is objective regards all that lies beyond those pre- 
cincts. These, then, are two palpably- different 
w^orlds. We become acquainted w^ith them respect- 
ively by means totally dissimilar. i\.ll the known 
properties of the one are utterly unlike those of the 
other. And yet the pseudo-science of the East,* 
and the modern idealism of Europe, engulf the 
whole objective universe in the individual mind. 
Those powerful metaphysicians wdiich rank with 
Kant and Fichte have thus dishonored both psy- 
chology and genius. They commence by apparently 
exalt in o; the thinkino; element within us, allep-ins: that 



* In the relation of the subjective to the objective — of man to the 
universe — lies that unsolved problem on which whole ages of thought 
have been unsuccessfully expended. About no other great question 
of antiquity have glowed more brilliant speculations of philosophic 
genius. The most indefatigable explorers in that ethereal region 
have found no way open from the personal to the impersonal ; from 
the individual to the universal. All the systems, in every successive 
school, by which anxious minds have essayed to bridge this separa- 
ting gulf, have found one common limit beyond which they could 
generate no light. Our race, in its childhood, cradled in the sultry 
climes of the East, speculated itself into a monotheism, in which was 
the living germ of pantheism. This was a death-blow to all the 
active powers of individual consciousness ; it was such an overshad- 
owing sense of the Infinite as could not but arise from this utter 
absorption of the individual in the universal. Indeed, it left no per- 



TRUTH. 133 

it dwells in its own principles of life ; that it is an 
energy of being irrespective of the body — an inde- 
pendent divinity within us. Still higher honor is 
accorded to our spiritual nature. It is made capa- 
ble of thoughts and emotions foreign to the senses 
and to externality; far superior to ''all grossness, 
all the fluctuations, and all the dissolutions of mate- 
rial things," so that in a sublime existence it pur- 
sues its felicitous inquiries in a sphere exclusively 
its own. 

Another advance is likewise made in this dazzling 
career by asserting innate thoughts ; thoughts ante- 
rior to thinking, knowledge independent of study- 
ing. From this dizzy hight, the system, waxing 
bold, takes another daring leap, and reaches the fatal 
conclusion that man's spiritual nature is self-living, 
self- advancing ; that itself is all that really exists; 
that the external world is the mind's oion forms, 



manent relations to be traced between the one and the many. It made 
unity and plurality — not two classes, but an insoluble whole. There 
was in the universe no such relation as cause and eflfect, but only that 
of substance and attributes. Thus the iron hand of necessity was alike 
on the one and the many ; on the substance and the attributes ; on 
Grod and on all that had flowed from him. Under the mysterious 
sway of that unknown power were all the visible and unseen move- 
ments in the universe. This fatalistic spell generated a deathlike 
indifference, which for thousands of years has left unbroken the slum- 
bers of Oriental mind. Neological Germany, abandoning her revealed 
guide, has strayed into the same misty regions. Other elements, 
peculiar to Western mind, will preclude that immobility of life, that 
abandonment of self, which are the legitimate offsjjring of panthe- 
ism ; but they can never shut out that delirious atheism-which madly 
breaks away from all the first principles of thought. 



134 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

transferred by fancy, so as to appear an outward 
scene. Objects witliout exist merety as mental affec- 
tions; reality is solely in the mind itself. This 
dark idealism annihilates the vital center of the 
universe, and turns to a fancy- dream our high com- 
munion with our living Parent. 

Opposite to this bewitching idealism is the cheer- 
less theory of materialism. The sum of this is that 
the mind is simply a refined faculty of the hody. 
Those reckless dogmatizers who reasoned themselves 
into this degrading faith, took their position on the 
conclusion of Locke, that sensation and reflection 
were the only sources of our knowledge, and, by a 
single bound, made a monstrous leap to the conclu- 
sion, ^^that sensation comprehends man's whole be- 
ing." This makes man, with all his melting sympa- 
thy and towering intellect, a creation of the outward 
world. Something infinitely below the xllmighty's 
breath will fan up the living fires in the organized 
lump of breathless matter. This gross sensualism 
perceives only matter through the entire range of 
being, and leaves not immortality unextinguished on 
the throne of the universe. 

These appalling results of engulfing the subjective 
in the objective, or the objective in the subjective, 
utter the most solemn warning to philosophizing 
mind against this guilty departure from first prin- 
ciples. 

The only remaining class of truth which we shall 
delay here to distinguish, is that which is moeal. 



TKUTH. 135 

The name distinguishes the qualities of right and 
wrong in the conduct of agents. As the distinction 
between these never originated in willj it never be- 
gan to be, and can never cease to be, and can never 
be other than it is. "Were it created, it was once 
out of the universe, and then the infinite Deity had 
no moral character, and must still be without one, 
as what he creates can never belong to his nature. 
What was made is distinguished by being that 
which is; that which always was, by being that 
which onust he. What is moral, then, is in the 
highest class of necessary truth. ITow, as the 
moral principle imposes obligations exactly com- 
mensurate to the relations of the parties, the dim- 
ness of that light in which duty often appears is 
owing to the partial concealment of relations. And 
thus scope is given to faith, that grand instrument 
of human recovery. 

We next advert briefly to some of the general 
principles which should direct our researches. These 
are indicated by the mode God has adopted to make 
himself known to us, and by the laws of our own 
mental structure. The assumption is a great truth, 
that all which God has done and said has for its 
permanent object his self-manifestation. This being 
so, he would do his works, and utter his Word, pre- 
cisely in that manner in which we could best un- 
derstand him in them. Thus, his first work would 
be a display of power, that being more simple and 

easy of apprehension than his other perfections. 

12 



136 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

He would next exhibit skill or wisdom, as, in sim- 
plicity, that stands next to power. At a higher 
stage he would manifest goodness, that being, in its 
nature, still more complex. Why would God adopt 
this order? Because this is the law by which cre- 
ated mind acquaints itself with him — the law by 
which it must investigate all truth. Confirmatory 
of this principle we shall find the answer to the 
question of fact. Has he adopted this method? The 
affirmative answer is indubitably given by geology. 
The creation arose first as an example of his un- 
matched might. Then was displayed his wisdom in 
the collocations of all organized nature. Afterward 
the streams of his goodness flowed out in the be- 
nignant ends of his contrivances. This very order 
of self-manifestation is equally marked in Provi- 
dence. The earlier revelations of God to the race 
most prominently illustrated his almightiness. Proof 
of this is found in the very character of the miracles 
of the Old Testament. But, in the stupendous won- 
ders of the New Testament, beamed out the splen- 
dors of goodness. Scarcely a miracle of Christ which 
was not eloquently expressive of this perfection. The 
most stern of these were more radiant with love than 
awful with power. This, then, is the order in which 
God has revealed himself, both in his works and 
Word. And the fact that he has chosen this order 
is an index to the mode in which our mind best in- 
vestigates truth. The Creator's works and Word 
have their elemental alphabet, no less than the Ian- 



TRUTH. 137 

guage of man. Witli these elemental truths every 
successful student must commence his upward ca- 
reer. He can not attempt to ascend per saltum 
without disaster. He must do it by a series of suc- 
cessive advances. He must go from the simple to 
the complex — from the minute to the vast — from 
unity to plurality — from the temporal to the eternal. 
Nor is this lesson less forcibly inculcated by our 
own ■mental structure. This structure clearly indi- 
cates the appointed Tnode of our acquiring knowl- 
edge. Self-introspection supersedes any other evi- 
dence that the changeless laws of nature render us, 
in all departments of research, philosophic beings. 
Such is our nature, that, by supposing every truth 
demonstrable, we destroy the possibility of dem.on- 
strating any truth. We must be constituted to con- 
ceive the truth of some propositions without proof, 
or be compelled to leave all propositions without 
proof. Hence, man's constitution is stored with 
ultimate truths — truths which admit of no self- 
explanation, but which repose on truths beyond 
themselves. Mind can not act consecutively with- 
out them. It finds itself presupposing them in 
every inquiry; and attention to itself makes them, 
like new creations, spring into light. Not so with 
the principles of generalization, which are volun- 
tarily elaborated. As ''the objects of nature never 
present themselves drawn up in rank and file, but 
await man's classification," so does the mind itself 
evolve the laws on which all classifications are to 



138 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

proceed. But, thoiigli these laws do not, like ulti- 
mate truths, make a part of our constitution, it is 
entirely within our capacity to evolve them. Now, 
it is demanded, how else can the mind extend its 
dominion but by classifying? And how can it clas- 
sify but by arranging particulars under general piin- 
ciples? And how can it so group particulars with- 
out previously considering them ? Thus, no vision 
can be plainer than that the mind is so constituted 
as to begin with the simple and advance to the 
complex. It can not be otherwise than that all 
created mind masters truth by a series of successive 
degrees. Could it grasp at once all truth, it would 
be infinite. Could it begin Avith the maximum^ of 
its knowledge, its condition would be eternally sta- 
tionary, and it is not in mind to endure so frightful 
a monotony through unwasting ages. This would 
make the depths of undying being the regions of 
ineffable solitude. No ; it can not be ! The voice of 
our developing powers, like the trumpet of eternity, 
will ever call, ''Onward! onward!" 

The mental structure, then, leads us from the 
single to the complex — from the individual to the 
class — from the abstract to the concrete. By these 
views are suQ;Qrested the harmony of truth. Such 
is the nature of all truth that of necessity it is a 
unit. Evidence of this flashes on us, whether we 
consider truth in its infinite source, in the mutual 
relations of its parts, or in its legitimate workings 
on created mind. The principle of mutual rela- 



TRUTH. 139 

tion which, at some points, binds together the vast 
variety of all truths, is fundamental to the unity 
of universal truth. Science is the relation of ideas 
to facts. Philosophy is the science of the connect- 
ing principles of nature. Without the unity of 
truth these connections would be abruptly termin- 
ated. Impassable chasms would divide them, and 
no mind could bridge those devouring gulfs. But 
finding all things within our compass indissolubly 
banded together, we look up the scale of creation, 
and are struck with this special order, namely, that 
each higher being is subserved by all beings below 
it in exactly that proportion in which it is more 
nearly related to the great end of the Author of all. 
Now, as every exhibition of truth in the universe 
has the self-manifestation of Jehovah for its aim, 
this connection of all its parts presupposes its unity 
in its source, and the identity of its nature. In- 
deed, the unity of all truth, when ^ traced to its 
great fountain, will be found in the infinite perfec- 
tions. For if all beings sprang from God like light 
from its dispenser, how can any of their relations 
be out of harmony with him? How can any of 
them clash with each other? How can they avoid 
uniting in their common principle, which must be 
seated in his perfections ? Must not the fearful 
strife of eternal opposites take place in those per- 
fections before the truths based on them can ever 
clash? The unity of those perfections must trans- 
mit itself to all that emanates from them. That 



140 LECTURES AND ADDRESSE,S. 

rainbow variety which beautifies all classes of truth 
can no more originate conflict between them than 
can the variety of persons in the Godhead kindle 
in the infinite perfections eternal w^ar. 

All developed truth is contained in existing rela- 
tions. One class of these relations lies between 
man and his Maker; another, between man and 
his fellows; a third, between man and the material 
creation; a fourth, between the different portions 
of that creation. The first class of these relations 
pervades the entire field of systematic theology ; 
the scope of the second is the profound science of 
morals; the last two extend over the vast province 
of physics. 

It falls not within our design to graduate these 
on the scale of importance; they must be dismissed 
by a single word on each. 

The truths involved in the first are a stream of 
morning light, kindling into a glow man's far-ofi" 
future, exhibiting the sanctions of eternal law as 
commensurate with the deathless nature and ever- 
expanding powers of the subjects of the law. 

Moral science evolves and classifies those immu- 
table principles which rest on the perfections of 
God, and comprehend all the rights of man, so that 
their voice is the world's harmony. Physics, sw^eep- 
ing over the unmeasured domains of matter, takes 
in all our relations to organized and unorganized 
nature, and all those connections which link together 
every particle of all worlds. Truth, in all these de- 



TEUTH. 141 

partments, occupies a place in the universal system 
of truth. Each relates to God, each to man, and 
all to both. 

11. We hasten to advert briefly to some of the 
QUALIFICATIONS indispensable to the successful in- 
vestigation of truth. At the very head of this list 
we place the love of truth. Between unperverted 
mind and all truth within its range there is an 
original and an eternal congeniality; and even in 
perverted mind there is a consciousness of the want 
of something which men hope for only in truth. 
This is so even when their profoundest currents 
of thought run in the low grounds of sense and 
passion. Such is mind, that through all its depths 
it will make known to itself this want as the most 
pressing it ever feels. Nor is it in the power of 
volition to calm this rage till the mind invests 
itself with that patience, calmness, singleness, and 
force requisite to investigate truth. When this is 
done, truth is sought as a legacy divinely bequeathed 
to the humblest mind. It is deemed the fairest off- 
spring of the Parent Supreme. Communion with it 
is sought as with an early companion, endeared by 
the joys and sorrows of departed years. Then is 
the truth felt with force, which was uttered by its 
noble Grecian martyr, ''That the gods have given 
nothing valuable to man without labor;" that no 
telegraphic or railroad mode of movement has ever 
been opened to any branch of knowledge; that much 



142 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

less will the laws of mind admit that the soul should 
be whirled with winged speed to the a.ttainment of 
all truth. 

Let -the original discoverer be w^ell heeded. Where 
did one ever arise whose master passion was not the 
love of truth ? Every mind of this small class, which 
has in all time glowed in the firmament of science, 
has resigned itself to the sway of this all- controlling 
principle. It has been bound to the interests of 
truth by the bands of an iron purpose. Decision 
has flashed on all its counsels, and indomitable per- 
severance has been the central object amid all the 
virtues of its character. During its intensest gaze 
on all ethereal things, truth alone has peopled the 
field of its vision. The voice of truth only came 
on its ear with enchanting sweetness. The mys- 
terious workings of this principle, when deeply 
seated within, have awakened the admiration of 
more than a single age — have made men heroes, 
martyrs, every thing to which supreme energy 
could raise them. 

This eagerness to know the truth has its fittest 
emblem in the gnawings of hunger — m unquench- 
able thirst. It foregoes many a delight of social 
hours — many a draught from the cup of domestic 
pleasure. It looks keenly into the deep and dis- 
tant through the dim light of the midnight lamp. 
This propelling love of truth is ineff'ably dissimilar 
to the cravings of ambition. He seeks knowledge, 
not because the attainment will yield him influence, 



TRUTH. 143 

or bring him wealth, or procure him fame — not be- 
cause it will give him a position in society while 
he lives, or a monument among the departed great 
when he dies — but because he loves it in its essential 
elements — because it is congenial with the deepest 
powers of his being — because it sheds a guiding 
light on his footsteps in his upward way to its 
own everlasting fountain. Truth disdains all com- 
munion with a mercenary spirit; never will its 
depths disclose their unborn beauty to him who 
explores them from the feeble motive of mere 
utility. 

The genuine thinker can never conceive how 
men can wish to know truth by proxy. The very 
thought of being released from personal investiga- 
tion comes on his powers with the coldness of death. 
No sooner could he consent to exchange evidence for 
authority, than he could feel himself released from 
oblio^ations to the God that made him. 

No matter how gorgeous the scientific drapery 
which might clothe the human oracle, he would 
turn his ear with pity and indignity from all its 
responses. This he would do, not because history 
warns him of the degradation which would other- 
wise ensue — not because the bloody records of the 
Waldenses, the Lollards, and the Huguenots read 
him a lesson at Avhich all ages will tremble — but 
because truth is dear to his heart — because it 
exalts his imperishable nature — because it binds 
him to his Maker's throne. 

18 



144 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

2. In further indicating these qualificatioyis, we 
remark that intellectual luealth should be acquired. 
A well-stored mind has special facilities to enlarge 
its empire. The question for solution, then, is, ITow 
shall this affluence of thought be reached? Not 
certainly by filling the mental chambers with 
isolated facts. These may encumber the mental 
researches, but can never greatly extend them. 
For this enlarging purpose single truths and facts 
must be arranged into systems. 

Take an illustrating example from history. He 
who would treasure up its wealth must never re- 
gard it as a mere circling of unprogressive changes, 
nor yet as a vast progress of crystallization by ex- 
ternal accretion. Such a progress is without vital 
organization, without rational significancy, without 
a moral end. Such a progress is restricted to un- 
organized nature, and never belonged to the stream 
of social events. He must reo-ard each event as a 

o 

part of the entire train. He must fix a piercing 
eye on that combining principle which, like a silver 
thread, runs through the manifold phenomena of 
social man. We know there is a connecting prin- 
ciple which preserves individual identity by binding 
together one's physical and mental changes from his 
cradle to his grave. Such is this social principle, 
which, like a stream of light, runs through the 
events of a nation's existence and of a world's his- 
tory. It is an adequate conception alone of this 
highest unity that can give intense light and 



TRUTH. 145 

thrilling power to tlie records of our race. Exclude 
this law of combining events, and we are cut off 
from the past, and the lesson inculcated by all that 
God and man have done is blotted out forever. But 
let events be arranged under this principle, and we 
shall commune with a spirit which will trace it not 
through one period, but through all periods. The 
student, resigning his powers to such a guide, will 
find them not circling around on a dead level, but 
in an ascending spiral movement — in an ever-rising 
position. But these indications of the mode of ac- 
quiring historical knowledge have points of applica- 
bility to all other branches of knowledge. Though 
our limits preclude the attempt to show how mental 
wealth is promoted by applying the principle of 
classification to every branch of knowledge, the 
single illustration we have furnished will readily 
suggest the mode. Never, in any other mode, 
through the whole history of the individual, can 
sufiicient knowledge be acquired for the purpose of 
an enlarged investigation of truth. But by this 
kind of research thought acquires an extent of 
empire, during this brief life, w^hich, by being 
conversant with separate facts, it might fail to do 
in a hundred a2;es. 

Our next remark turns on the requisite mental 
DISCIPLINE. So palpable is the demand "for this, 
that additional evidence is superseded. No artist 
ever deemed himself skillful till he could command 
the ready use of his tools. The inquirer after truth 



146 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

must add to his earnestness this skill. The power 
of patient, fixed, and protracted attention must 
be his. In all elementary pursuits the discipline 
rather than the wealth of the mind should be 
sought; and it is interesting to know that the right 
mode of seeking the latter is the most successful 
method of aspiring at the former. The same kind 
of exercise which best replenishes the mind with 
thought, most improves the thinking powers. This 
mental vigor arises, not from the amount of knowl- 
edge acquired, but from the strenuous efforts and 
vigorous discipline of the powers in making the ac- 
quirement. The highest use of these can be attained 
only by this habitual use of them. Deep, undi- 
verted, and protracted attention is a sine qua non 
to a highly-disciplined mental state. A languid, 
intermitted attention is unavoidably fatal to all 
mental elevation. It must, in no degree, be toler- 
ated, but banished at once and forever, on the peril 
of its becoming a ruinous habit. It was to this all- 
controlling power of attention that Newton ascribed 
his highest attainments in science. Without this 
the mental tone is fearfully injured, and the inward 
vigor irreparably impaired. With it conception be- 
comes vivid, suggestion fruitful, and combination of 
an ever-growing compass. It is amazing to observe 
how mind thus trained will pierce the arcana of 
truth — how it will seize on the general in the par- 
ticular, and be introduced to causes by investigating 
their effects. In what other state can the mind lay 



TRUTH. 147 

hold of the essential in the accidental, so as to find 
the inward symbolized by the outward? In many 
a walk of thought the essence of things remains too 
subtile to be pierced by probationary mind; but 
such thinkers the phenomena point to that in the 
substance which startles and thrills them. They see 
behind all action a vital principle — under all phe- 
nomena a viewless substance. How this disciplined 
state relates its subjects to the men of their genera- 
tion can be inconceivable by none. It makes them 
the prophets of their nation — the interpreters of the 
voices of the experience of all the historical past. 
All departed events are laid under contribution to 
their useful agency. They think, not with the mul- 
titude, but for the multitude. Such patient, assidu- 
ous explorers in the field of truth have not in vain 
delved hard for the costliest gems. Long since have 
they renounced that fatal delusion that the ease of 
acquisition is the test of its value, and that the 
darkness of a moral problem is a sufficient reason to 
refrain from investigating its principles. Much 
more will they never be guilty of such treason 
against the laws of intellect as to sneer at such 
problems. Their darkness will not be referred to 
their confusion, but to the want of scope and depth 
in the inquirer's powers. This requisite discipline 
inculcates, as by the tongue of a trumpet, that pro- 
found science and revealed reliarion can never be 

o 

divested of their inherent grandeur — that their im- 
perative demand is to be left covered with what was 



148 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

always venerable and awful in their depths. If 
never- tiring efforts, made by undivided powers, fail 
to scrutinize the laws of causes, what marvel that 
fitful intellects should stumble at those everlasting 
principles ? 

This disciplined state of intellect is likewise essen- 
tial to grapple with abstruse principles, as it, only, 
qualifies the mind to greet light from whatever 
fount it may emanate, and to convey on a given 
point every straying beam. It tolerates the idio- 
syncrasies of each laborer in the common field of 
investigation. It will accord to others the same 
noble independence which it claims for itself. 

Minds under an opposite control graduate their 
respect for truth by the age, or land, or nation, or 
other circumstances of its origin. It is important as 
it came from Greece or Kome — from the time of 
Demosthenes, or Cicero, or Augustine, or Luther; 
as it was of either of the four schools of Greece — 
from that of Alexandria — from Oriental or Occidental 
mind — ancient or modern — from the Old or New 
World. But adequate discipline allows no truth to 
take its hues from any of these mere cirGuinstances. 
It is admitted to confidence, not according to the 
channel through which it may have flowed, but in 
proportion to the evidence by which it is sustained. 
What possible difierence can exist in the worth of 
truth, whether it was evolved from the depths of 
Eastern or Western mind? — whether it had birth 
in the Augustan age, or in the tenth century, which 



TRUTH. 149 

was tlie midnight hour of Christian history? — or at 
the zenith of the nineteenth century, this focal point 
of all converging lights of the past? 

The discipline we have indicated bears favorably 
on the acquiring of truth at another point : it pre- 
vents the slightest suspicion that one truth, or sci- 
ence, can ever be in conflict with another. Much 
more does it vanquish the thought that any scien- 
tific truth can be out of harmony with any fact or 
principle of which Kevelation is the record. Mind, 
in this state conversant with abstract principle, 
dwells much on the true, the beautiful, the essen- 
tial, the eternal. It finds such principle underlying 
all progressive thought, and, carrying them cour- 
ageously out to all their legitimate results, it finds 
points of union between all the segments of the great 
circle of universal truth. 

"We remark again, on this branch of our theme, 
that an acquaintance with the laws of mind is in- 
dispensable to the investigation of all other laws. 
It is apparent, even without argument, that the 
whole objective universe could furnish not a shadow 
of interest were it disconnected with the subjective, 
the mind. The science of mind is the science of 
one's inward self. Here the material on which he 
operates, the instrument by which he works, and 
the agent operating, are not various, but the same. 

It is that by which all thinking, all feeling, all 
doing are accomplished. The science, then, of this 
comparing, investigating, and determining substance, 



150 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES. 

is tlie center of all sciences — the key of all access- 
ible secrets. The limits of our mental powers are, 
therefore, the only limits within which all sciences 
are comprehended, and beyond which no human 
science can have being. 

The goal of science is not, however, the limit of 
truth. We know not that the ocean of truth has 
limits, whose weaves of light lave the foot of the ever- 
lasting throne. If it have, they can be ascertained 
only by powers of vastly-broader compass than ours, 
and in a period of immeasurably-larger extent. 

One striking relation which an acquaintance with 
the laws of mind bears to our investigation of truth, 
is found in the protection it affords against both 
timidity and rashness; against despair of achieving 
that to which we are fully adequate ; and against 
the waste of our powers by attempting what is im- 
possible. And to utter in one word all we mean, 
we allege that without some science of mind there 
is not, in the whole universe, any science for man. 

III. We now hasten to remark, finally, that such 
qualifications are demanded by our times. This 
appears by the severity of the test by which the evi- 
dences of religion are noio tried. This applies to 
externcd proofs, which are found both in the mira- 
cles of prescience and of power — in the supernatural 
deeds and prophetic declarations of God. Pagan 
and Papal miracles have been adduced, in the m^ost 
imposing array, to rival these from heaven. The 



TRUTH. 151 

deepest antiquity must be explored to let in a scath- 
ing liglit on these tissues of imposture, and to reveal 
Jehovah's hand in the authenticating miracles of 
Eevelation, and his mind in those prophecies which 
sweep over the great events of human history. It 
applies to collateral evidences, which may be made 
to gather strength from every new element detected 
in the great events of history, and from every late 
development in the revealings of science, and from 
the coins, medals, and marbles of antiquity; to in- 
ternal evidences, whose strength is found in that 
exquisite adaptation of all the Divine doctrines and 
precepts to the wants and woes of every generation 
of the race. 

Who sees not the extent of intelligence requisite 
to settle even the preliminary question, Does the 
human state demand a revelation from Heaven ? 
The answer lies in the facts of man's moral history ; 
and these facts being found in the secrets of his 
nature, and in the records of his race, they must be 
scrutinized by the most piercing glances, and clas- 
sified by the most rigid analysis. 

Can less be affirmed of the genuineness or of the 
authenticity of God's oracles, but especially of those 
far-reaching questions, their credibility and inspira- 
tion? For here must be elaborated those profound 
reasonings which show that the supernatural char- 
acter of the truth revealed, and of Him who taught 
it, claimed a character equally supernatural for the 
facts that authenticate it. 



152 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

But what idea can be given of the vastness of 
these topics by this simple enumeration of them? 
Each topic numbers many subordinate ones, and 
every one of these has far-reaching ramifications. 
Who was ever conversant with Warburton, Light- 
foot, Butler, Watson, Lardner, or a hundredth part 
of similar authors, without absolutely bowing to the 
conviction that the proof of religion has no com- 
petitor in its claims on disciplined mind — that it is 
supreme in its demands on intense thought, patient 
research, and profound learning? 

Nor is the requisition from another quarter much 
less imperious for such qualifications. I allude to 
the learned attacks to which Revelation is now es- 
pecially exposed. Scarcely has science v/on a new 
trophy in the enlarging field it occupies which pro- 
fane ingenuity has not converted into a deadly 
weapon against religion. It was thus with as- 
tronomy. Men measured the heavens and num- 
bered its stars, to marshal them against His agency 
whose eternal breath kindled their fires. It was 
so with geology. When that science, so long un- 
classified and so little known, first broke the silence 
of a thousand ages, and revealed the secrets of de- 
parted worlds, it was made to proclaim the eternity 
of our globe, and erect a material throne which 
should rival the throne of Jehovah. Christian mind 
must master these sciences, and wrest them from 
the usurper's grasp. But if this should be done to 
prevent the false application of true science, must 



TEUTH. 153 

less be achieved to preclude the ruinous application 
of false science? 

This, too, has acted a prominent part to accom- 
plish the extinction of revealed truth. As an illus- 
trative instance, we advert to the ancient idealism 
of the Oriental world. This has found acceptance 
in Western mind, and, being decked with the brill- 
iant robe of German nomenclature, it now claims 
to be a profound discovery — one which lay be- 
yond the compass of all minds, excepting the master 
spirits of the race. This strange philosophy, which 
makes all without us merely the reflection of our 
own mind within — which merges God and his whole 
universe into the fancy of the percipient — this phi- 
losophy can find an equal in absurdity only in the 
plausible scheme of utter materialism. This can 
perceive nothing in spirit which is not in matter; 
nothing in mind, which measures the heavens, that 
mere organization would not give to the clod on 
which you tread; nothing in the Newtons, and 
Bacons, and Lockes of our race, which favoring 
circumstances would not impart to an oyster in 
the sand. This dispensing with all agency above 
matter sees no demand for the Almighty's breath 
to light up the quenchless fires of the soul. A 
mere lump of matter is sufficient for this, though 
intrinsically dead as that which it is to kindle 
into life. 

We advert to but one more demand made by 
religion on cultivated intellect. Eeligion demands 



15-1 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

of that agency to guq.rd it against self- corruption — 
digdln^t fanaticism and formalism into which it has 
ever tended to degenerate. These two great coun- 
terfeits have their symbols in the golden calf at 
Horeb, and in the strange fire offered by the 
usurpers arrayed against Moses in the wilder- 
ness. The lapse of three thousand years has not 
changed this downward tendency. Never since has 
one of these failed to occupy the place vacated by 
piety. 

The corelation of fanaticism and formalism is that 
of parent and offspring. The over-tasked sensibili- 
ties, kindled into a livid flame by fanaticism, soon 
sink down exhausted into the cold embrace of form- 
alism. One of these grand corruptions of spiritual 
worship has embodied itself in Paganism, and the 
other in the Papacy. But what Church of any age 
has been totally unblighted by these offsprings of 
our alienated nature? They have clung to per- 
verted mind like the attributes of its own nature. 
Happy for the most cloudless realms of evangelism 
if against these intruders they had an abiding in- 
demnity! But through all time this chilling cold 
or scorching flame has menaced our moral nature. 

Now, who knows not that in a large intelli- 
gence these two counterfeits find not one conge- 
nial element; that such intelligence, giving health, 
depth, and vigor to pious susceptibilities, secures 
the affections against the blight of this spurious 
Christianity ? 



TRUTH. 155 

Finding enougli in tlie supreme motives of the 
Gospel to meet the soul's cravings, both for action 
and repose, it supplies from that source the suscep- 
tibilities for the beautiful, and the sublime, and the 
heroic. It adopts that great regulator of mind — 
the principle of preoccupation and substitution. It 
skillfully administers to the social mind these pure 
elements of revealed and enrapturing truth which 
preclude diseased cravings for the spurious. It 
allures to Scriptural themes and Scriptural enter- 
prises which furnish ample scope for the most glov/- 
ing energies. 

We allege this depth of knowledge to be the de- 
mand of our times. Our epoch is one of advancing 
humanity. The proof is in the onward movement 
of the arts ; in the rapid development of the sci- 
ences ; in the higher civilization of the race. ISTow 
the nobler powers within are elicited in the many, 
in the masses, not in the solitary few, slowly rising 
at long and gloomy intervals. Periods there have 
been, it is true, along the track of generations 
which have appeared and vanished, which have 
been kindled into a glov/ by gifted individuals; but 
where does man's history record this of the majority 
of a single nation on the footstool ? 

Grreat schools have, through successive centuries, 
honored many realms. Somethings like the Athens 
of Greece, the Kome of Italy, the Alexandria of 
Africa, has kindled great lights through distant 
periods. But how can these sparsely-scattered 



156 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

minds from those great centers of kindled intellect 
be a test of the advanced state of the race ? How 
can there be found in them a criterion for determ- 
ining the stage attained by the masses of men? 
The depth of general gloom contributed to the 
intensity and expansion of their luster, but it was 
never banished by their agency. It is the extent 
to which the majority are vivified, by the living 
streams of knowledge, which tests the facilities for 
extending the dominion of truth. We submit to all 
men whether any thing short of this general intel- 
ligence can give scope to the utmost energies of dis- 
ciplined intellect? 

Indeed, such a state alone can create a demand 
for strong thinkers. This is the very condition in 
which men explore unwonted territories of thought; 
in which there will be new conception; new com- 
binations of facts ; new applications of principles, 
and newly-arranged systems of error. 

Now, who knows not that our degeneracy is such 
that perverting forces will corrupt society in pro- 
portion to its susceptibility of elevation ? This will 
ever be the fearful realization in the absence of 
strong counteracting agency. 

Here, then, we reach our overwhelming conclu- 
sion; namely, that it is impossible for educated 
mind to avoid a responsibility enhanced by the 
quickened energies of our wondrous century. Our 
age has collected the splendid fragments of thoughts 
which departed ages bequeathed to posterity. To 



TRUTH. 157 

these it lias added the richer materials of its own 
production. 

In the midst of this mental opulence, how ter- 
rible will be the shock of opposing forces ! How 
fierce will be the combat of truth with error 1 How 
much higher ground will be occupied by the latter 
in wielding its unwonted weapons ! What fury will 
be in that death-struggle! Advocates of truth, of 
humanity, of God, plunge into the unforbidden se- 
crets of the universe; arm yourselves with the 
power of far-reaching principles; resolve deep truths 
into others more general and profound ; combine 
the perfect laws of moral government, and resolve 
the high problems of God's administration by the 
blended lights of both worlds. 



THE PRESENTATION OF THE DIPLOMAS. 

Beloved Pupils, — We trust your reception of 
these testimonials is no less expressive of your noble 
purpose for the future, than the presentation of them 
is of our approval of the past. While they testify 
to the honorable manner in which you have acted 
your part while with us, let them be an incentive 
to not less noble achievement after you have parted 
from us. Your protracted struggle in grappling 
with the great principles of truth which you have 
mastered, we deem a pledge of still loftier efforts 
which your future history shall record. 



158 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

A perennial fountain of quickening influence will 
be found in the assurance that every successive 
attainment is also a preparatory attainment — that 
every advanced step is a facility to one still higher, 
and that the nature of mind admits of no limit to 
your progress beyond which advance is impossible. 
That imaginary limit to mental expansion which 
apathy and timidity have made a wall of adamant, 
will demand only your perseverance to become 
yielding as the ambient air. With the grandeur of 
the scholar's mission in your eye, you will read 
excelsior on every intellectual hight along your 
whole career. There, perseverance has written that 
quickening word in characters of living light. 

But let it never escape you, that all the intellect- 
ual wealth and discipline to which you can ever 
aspire, are to be sought, not for their own sake, but 
for an object far transcending themselves. 

It was not to amass wealth, to acquire fame, to 
excel in the skill of the advocate, or in the healing 
art of the physician — at an object far surpassing 
those your culture aimed. It was to take part in 
the great Eedeemer's restoring enterprise. It was 
to vanquish that desolating agency of sin which is 
blighting man's hopes for both worlds. It was to 
disinthrall immortal millions on earth, and allure 
them to mansions of light which Christ is fitting up 
in heaven. With what an unearthly spirit, then, 
should the functions of this highest office intrusted 
to man be discharged ! 



TRUTH. 159 

It can not but fiasli upon us with revealing light, 
that self-sacrifice should be the spirit — that it is 
vital to your office to live, not for yourselves, but 
for others — not for man's applause, but for their 
souls — not for the emolument of earth, but for the 
approval of Heaven — not for the gilded toys of time, 
but for the changeless scenes of eternity. 

Go, then, beloved pupils, as you depart from these 
halls of sacred lore— go with a purpose firm as the 
center of the globe, to cultivate whatever is gentle- 
manly, noble, or Christian, which you may have here 
imbibed ! Go with a purpose to strengthen what 
remains weak — to mature what is still germinant! 
And amid the wildest revulsions of public faith, let 
your convictions never be shaken of the kindredship 
of intellectual and moral improvement. Never sun- 
der these which God has joined together. Ever 
recognize the fraternal ties by which science, litera- 
ture, and religion are inseparable. Never, then, 
divorce the highest culture of the mind from the 
deepest piety of the heart. No more suppose that 
the intellectual and moral powers can be separated 
in ourselves than in the Almighty which made us. 

But we have now reached a point where our ways 
divide. The high and endearing relations of pupil 
and teacher have attained a crisis, and must now 
dissolve. But though that period, which has been 
one of trembling anxiety, has forever fled, the 
thrilling remembrances which it shall throw for- 
ward into the future shall never perish. The so- 

U 



160 LECTUPvES AND ADDRESSES. 

licitucle of your teachers, like an attribute of your 
nature, will abide with you. 

They will exult in the apostolic zeal of your min- 
istry — in the noble daring of your Christian enter- 
prise. And when any of you shall stand up alone, 
on a dark and distant shore, surrounded only by 
those desolate objects which first greet the mission- 
ary, then will your companions and assistants in 
study seem, to cheer your solitude by those utter- 
ances to which you have so often listened in these 
sacred halls. 

And let us not be unmindful of the fact that this 
earthly farewell, now trembling on our lips, is little 
more than its own echo, which shall be our speedy 
greeting, when our ministerial achievements and 
earthly pilgrimage shall be accomplished. 

With these quickening anticipations, we bid you 
an affectionate and final farewell. 



V. 
ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL, 

AN ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE 
GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, 1860. 



Young Gentlemen, — There is a sense in which 
the present hour shall stand alone in the history of 
your being. To this period every hour of your in- 
stitution life has looked forward, through the prepa- 
ration which has been the medium of approaching 
it. To it all the future of your present life will 
look back as to a fixed starting point. The present 
hour, therefore, in its retrospects and prospects, 
must even be peculiar. On one side of it lies that 
silent, anxious, toilful course in which half a score 
of branches were to be mastered; on the other, 
that various, stirring, eventful, itinerant field, 
whose stars are to be kindled to glitter in a 
fadeless crown. 

Here you have studied hooks, and communed 

through them with the great minds of departed 

thinkers; there you will study men to find the 

avenues lying open to their convictions. Here you 

have mastered the laws of thought; there you will 

learn all those perverting tendencies which so in- 

161 



162 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

fluence tliought as to make life a failure. Here 
the great redemption occupied you as a beautiful 
theory, as a stupendous expedient, as mounting 
even above the awful hights of justice; there you 
will learn the obstacles to its application, and the 
only agency by which they are surmountable. No 
lesson learned on the most luminous page — no direc- 
tion given by the wisest counselor — can supply that 
knowledge acquired by actual contact and intimate 
social intercourse. Still may you profit in this 
practical field by the wise suggestions of your 
authors and teachers. Instead of repeating or ex- 
tending them here, however, I hope you will permit 
me to close the period wdiich has m^easured our 
mutual and affectionate relations by a brief dis- 
cussion of some of the peculiarities of the age. 

Though the occasion might be fitly improved, as 
I have just observed, in imparting counsel on prac- 
tical questions, it may be more profitably appro- 
priated by discussing profounder topics. The age, 
you know, which has just departed has been one 
of strong mental action. The German mind espe- 
cially has been profoundly moved, and claims to 
have ascended to the highest generalization that 
can be the boast of science; but so morbidly sub- 
jective has it been as almost to ignore the external 
sphere of thought. That this mental habit has be- 
come a moral disease is evinced by the mischief it 
has wrought in the sphere of theology. Since Schel- 
ling startled all Europe by his bold theory, it has 



AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 163 

been entitled '^the New Fhilosophy,'' and, with not 
less fitness, ^^ Natural Mysticism,'' as it places the 
highest spiritual truths within the intuitive grasp 
of reason. Did not this utterly supersede God's 
Eevelation, I should not now invite you to investi- 
gate it. You are doubtless unaware of the extent 
to which it now affects the Churches, and will ob- 
struct your own ministry. Though it sweeps over 
no entire Christian community, yet a majority of the 
Churches have representative minds which powerfully 
vindicate it. Ever since the ethereal Coleridge im- 
ported it to the British isles, its virus has operated 
on clerical speculators. A large class of the National 
Establishment, called ''the Broad Church," make 
this philosophy its underlying principle. Among 
its prominent leaders are Arnold, Hare, Conybeare, 
Jowett, and Powell, who should be named, as their 
productions are acting on American mind. ''The 
Free Church of Scotland" is not unsmitten with 
the same withering blight. The Churches of the 
New World are beginning to taste the same fatal 
cup. Dr. Hecock and his admirers are not alone 
in bowing to the fundamental principle of the "new 
philosophy." It is true that its advocates are ex- 
ceedingly various in the extent to which they in- 
dorse it. While some are but slightly tinged by 
its dark hues, over others it has gained a complete 
mastery. By these it is grasped as a harmonious 
whole; by those, in only some of its disrupted ele- 
ments. A consecutive mind can never tolerate this 



164 LECTUEES AND ADDEES3ES. 

disseverance of parts; as for the same reason it em- 
braces any, it embraces all; and for the same reason 
it rejects the whole, it rejects every part. 

It is vital to your clear conception of this theory 
that you become familiar with its watch-words. 
Among these are the following; namely, spiritual 
faith, spiritual sense, spiritual insight, the practical 
reason, the intuitional capacity, mental dynamics, 
and self-evolution. These phrases are so employed 
as to make faith — the mind's organ — perceptive 
of absolute truth, irrespective of the least evidence 
out of this organ itself. One fatal conclusion is, 
this intuitive knowledge shuts out all other evi- 
dence from the objects it apprehends. It verbally 
concedes the inspiration of the Scriptures — not of 
their words, but of their ideas — not of the letter, 
but of the spirit; so that the ineffable doctrines of 
the Bible must be grasped, not through the lanes 
of interpretation, but by direct intuition. This 
''spirit eye" sees in the Pentateuch and Gospels 
a splendid allegory; in Christ, the archetypal idea 
which was purified in Adam ; it sees in Adam not a 
man, but ''man." This was the generic sinfulness — 
the sin of each of the species. This transmutes the 
Spirit's saving work into an inward law, consisting 
in the activities of the reason; this makes Chris- 
tianity not a doctrine, but a life; it makes the 
miracles of the Bible not a support, but its incum- 
brance. The gigantic work of intuitive reason is 
to grasp universal truth, irrespective of every law ( 






AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 165 

of the understanding. Thus is confounded the 
knowledge of first principles with that which is 
logical, historical, and testimonial. Hence that new 
distinction—of which the apostles never dreamed — 
between the natural and spiritual mind: the former 
being the understanding; the latter, the reason. 
This reason is the subjective revelation shutting out 
forever all objective revelation, as it intuitively per- 
ceives more than can be objectively revealed. 

What possible end can miracles and prophecy 
subserve, when the very truth they would prove 
is self- attested to the inward sense? Is there any 
evidence within the compass of thought more re- 
sistless than intuitive? Can it be increased or 
diminished by any kind or degree of proof? And 
as this faculty sees no evidence out of the objects it 
grasps, all external evidence of Divine truth is, of 
necessity, set aside; and all other truth whose evi- 
dence is not in itself intuitive must be discredited. 
Hence, asserts one of its American advocates — Dr. 
Hickok — '' Without this faculty the Bible might as 
well be given to our brutes;" and we assert that 
with it it would be as useless as any amusing alle- 
gory. 

But is this faculty a reality or a sheer fiction? 
The solution is easy by mere self-introspection. 
Make the appeal, then, at once to consciousness. 
Does this report the existence of a faculty in your 
mind which instantly grasps spiritual truth without 
the testimony of the Bible ? You know it does not. 



166 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES, 

The substitution of it for the spirit of all grace is, 
therefore, a baseless assumption. 

Had it been a reality, would not the universal 
agreement of mankind be a fact? Who knows 
not that what is intuitively known is seen in the 
same light by all minds ? It is not possible it 
should be otherwise. The notorious diversity in 
the faith of all ages and nations, touching this very 
class of truth; is a triumphant refutation of this 
intuition theory. Its imreality is strongly indi- 
cated, also, by the common conviction of men, that 
the mind is constructed for external evidence. Is 
not the felt certainty substantially the same when 
the evidence is testimonial, inductive, or intuitive? 
Do I feel less sure that York exists than that 
two halves make a whole, or that the three angles 
of a triangle are equal to two right angles? Were 
not the mind originally fitted for testimonial evi- 
dence, eternal doubt would shade all the experiences 
of the race which lie beyond personal observation. 
But the ''new philosophy" ignores the fact that the 
Bible, on the sternest penalty, requires faith in its 
profoundest mysteries, based on testimonial evi- 
dence. It requires faith in facts which occurred on 
unknown principles, whose evidence is, therefore, 
entirely out of themselves. Miracles — that occupy 
so large a portion of the Bible — to which the Great 
Bestorer himself made his supreme appeal — have 
ever been regarded as the fittest authentication of 
supernatural claims. Otherwise, men and devils had 



I 



AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 167 

never counterfeited tliem. Is it demanded, that as 
false miracles are to be tested by their tendency, 
(Deut. xiii, 1-3,) why are not true ones to be so 
tested ? You will readily answer that we previously 
know the truth of principles infracted by false mira- 
cles, but can not so know the falsehood of what is 
supported by true miracles. Thus, while true mira- 
cles are the test of doctrines, doctrines are the test 
of false miracles. The mode, therefore, of deciding 
what is from God is unlike that of determining what 
is not from him. There can be no middle way. 
Either this '' intuitional reason" pierces the depths 
of Divinity, or the purely-supernatural doctrine 
must find its highest support in miraculous attesta- 
tion. This applies to the Trinity, the incarnation, 
the resurrection, and to kindred doctrines. What 
can be more glaringly absurd than to confound our 
intuitional conception of a miracle with such a con- 
ception of the nature of that to which it attests ? 
While miracles come to us in the resistless power 
of first principles, shining in their own light, that 
to which they attest may be revealed only by the 
visions of eternity. 

That the Scriptures make a direct and exclusive 
appeal to the evidence of sense, in support of these 
great facts, is unquestionable. Take an example in 
the central miracle of the Christian religion — the 
resurrection of Christ. The whole argument for the 
r:^surrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv) assumes the 

validity of external evidence in support of a miracu- 

15 



168 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

lous fact. The entire fabric of Christianity is made 
to rest on the testimony of the hundreds that saw 
him risen, and on that of those who witnessed the 
miracles wrought in proof of the fact. The unre- 
liability of these is the overthrow of the Christian's 
faith, and hope, and preaching. The great principle 
here asserted is the rejection of a philosophical or 
intuitive support of Christianity, and the proof of 
its miraculous support. This, then, is subversive 
of the position that miracles are interpreted and 
tested by doctrines, and not doctrines by miracles. 
Were the former so it would utterly supersede 
miraculous attestation. For by investing the mind 
with a discernment of the supernatural, we preclude 
all demand for external attestation of the supernat- 
ural. What could be more impertinent than mirac- 
ulously to authenticate those foundation truths were 
they self-evident? ^_ But if those truths be not self- 
evident, it is impossible they should test miracles 
which are self-evident. 

The contempt which this theory has generated for 
the external evidence of revealed religion is decisive 
of the inference we have urged. It is true the 
Scriptures are replete with internal evidence — 
like the great fabric of nature, which, by its beauty, 
harmony, immensity, and grandeur, is eloquent of 
its Author — evincive of God. 

But this evidence is not primary, but secondary. 
Otherwise, the distinction is lost between natural 
and revealed religion. The fall of man, the trinity 



AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 169 

of God, the incarnation, resarrection, and ascension 
of Christ, and the like truths, would lie open to the 
intuitive faculty, as does the unclouded sun to the 
eye. Now, that these truths lie outside of the intu- 
itive sphere is proved by a thousand demonstrations. 
Otherwise the millions utterly ignorant of them 
should have in all ages seen them with the clearness 
of vision, while they have remained blind to them 
as the clods beneath their feet. Where would many 
divinely-enjoined acts find a justification out of the 
authority of God? Such as the bloody ofi'ering of 
Abraham, which he was to make of his son; the 
utter destruction of men, women, and children, which 
Saul was to make of the then peaceable Amalekites. 
Would not the broad seal of impiety and inhumanity 
be stamped on it if not expressly authorized by the 
Proprietor of all? What spiritual foresight could 
reach that authority, without which authority this 
would be murderous cruelty? Whatever requires 
God's attestation to revealed truth, that very thing 
requires implicit faith in that truth and obedi- 
ence to it, and prohibits belief in it prior to that 
attestation, and all doubt of it subsequent to that 
attestation. 

It will readily occur to you, that next to the 
miracles of power is the miracle of foresight in 
prophecy, and that this is so interwoven with cardi- 
nal doctrines and corresponding precepts, sustained 
by miracles of power, that to find these prophecies 
shams would be stranger than the most stupendous 



170 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

miracle of the Bible. Did not God recognize the 
demand of his commissioned servants for miraculous 
attestation ? He gave to Moses the required sign to 
the captives in his wondrous '' rod " — to the King 
who demanded, '' Show us a miracle for you." Was 
not Elijah's prophetic character divinely vindicated 
by a miracle which blazed from heaven, extorting 
from idolaters the exclamation, '' The Lord he is 
God!" Christ himself called on his nation to test 
the Divinity of his character by the ordeal of mira- 
cles. " If I do not the works of my Father, believe 
me not." Indeed, the sacred records leave the ob- 
ject of miracles clear as vision, saying, " These mira- 
cles are written that ye might believe that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God." To authenticate his 
disciples' message, '^God bore them witness with 
signs, and wonders, and divers gifts of the Holy 
Ghost." So palpably do both Testaments depend on 
miracles, that they every-where recognize the prin- 
ciple, regarding them as seals pledging the Omnipo- 
tence and Omniscience for the truth of that to which 
they attest. When did the Bible ever appeal to our 
'' intuitive perception " of its truth as a ground of 
our faith in its Divinity ? The question should be 
trumpet-tongued. ISTo affirmative answer is possible. 
It is clear as light that this alleged sufficiency 
of the natural is the utter exclusion of the super- 
natural. Now, this very thing is the stupendous 
achievement of the ''new philosophy." It abolishes 
the supernatural by perpetually '' affirming the es- 



AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 171 

sential unity of reason and revelation," and by 
maintaining '^ that Christian faith is the perfection 
of human reason;" that the mind's '^ spiritual in- 
sight is faith, and that faith is this insight." You 
will instantly discriminate between the alleged iden- 
tity and the real harmony of the two. As the light 
of reason intensifies and expands, larger portions of 
revealed truth Avill come within its sphere ; but this 
mental progress through eternity can never disclose 
all that Revelation may announce. Has any thing 
in the Scriptures struck you more palpably than 
that they require us to believe in their profound 
mysteries, and not to reason them out — to weigh 
the evidences that support them, but to seek those 
evidences out of the mysteries themselves ? 

There is another point of antagonism between the 
Scriptures and this philosophy ; it is the false prin- 
ciple of interpretation which this adopts. All inter- 
pretation flowing from this principle is, therefore, 
itself false. It makes that very Revelation, which 
descended from Heaven to instruct reason, a subject 
of the critical scrutiny of reason, and thus turns the 
Bible into a book of riddles, to be solved by that 
very faculty which could not grasp those truths 
which the Bible discloses. 

How this ^' new philosophy" is related to sacred 
literature, and to systematic theology, I need not ex- 
plain to you. It will spontaneously occur that what 
is intuitively seen is not laboriously acquired — that it 
can not need science and literature — broad and pro- 



172 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

found scliolarship ; that rich, and grand, and priceless 
as are these, they are huge impertinences in relation 
to what is intuitively seen. Here the far-reaching at- 
tainments of the theologian — his profound researches 
in ancient lore and the trifles of childhood — are in 
value on the same level. Kejecting, therefore, the 
''new philosophy" as subversive of all the purposes 
for which we are to search the Scriptures, in spite 
of its pretensions we must regard the Bible as self- 
interpretative. Indeed, self-rev elation is intrinsically 
necessary to a Divine message, so far as to reach 
every essential doctrine of the message. The hidden 
harmony in the minutest details of the Bible is the 
uniting bond in its great outline. Should no portion 
of the oracle give the sense of what is obscure in 
other portions, so far it is only a revelation for 
the future — not for the present. The whole book 
that is a present revelation is, therefore, self-explica- 
tive. Were its highest truths within the grasp of 
reason, every principle of interpretation would be a 
useless incumbrance. For if reason pierced those 
truths through the light in which they intrinsically 
shine, all attempts to converge external lights upon 
them w^ere a w^aste of energies. For the most part 
each portion of these oracles is a reflector shedding 
light on all other portions of them. Instead, there- 
fore, of an intuitive seizure on the import of Scrip- 
tural mysteries, that import is found by an elabora- 
tive process more sifting and extensive than can be 
demanded by any other book. 



AUTHORITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 173 

Beloved pupils, I trust you will appreciate the 
reason for which we have refrained from an ex- 
pression of those intense yearnings for your future 
which our relations to the departing class have not 
failed to awaken. Though the apprehension would 
be agonizing to the Faculty that they should not 
remain among the objects of your tenderest memo- 
ries, still is their solicitude greater for your reten- 
tion of the great principles they have inculcated. 
If either our persons or these principles must fade 
from memory, cling to these with exhaustless te- 
Dacity, and consign us to oblivion. We must die — ■ 
these will live. Our voices will be no more in your 
ears — their light will shine on all your future foot- 
steps. "We have, therefore, seized on this tenderest 
moment of our history to engrave on your faculties 
more- deeply some of these great principles. 

Having now reached the point where our ways 
divide, we feel that both the past and the future 
are present. The one strangely returns departed 
events; the other mysteriously unbosoms unborn 
events. They are both prophetic, portraying that, 
coming struggle of pleasure, pride, passion, in arms 
against duty — error against truth. The portion of 
your being passed in our sacred halls is related to 
the future as it can never be to the past. There is 
an affecting sense in which our future and yours 
will not be apart. 

We shall never cease to attend you till we cease 
to be among men. Memory will keep you with us, 



174 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

and hope will keep us with you. Our eye will 
trace your path of toil; our heart will palpitate 
with yours in your hour of woe, and sympathize 
with yours in the rapture of success; and our pray- 
ers shall be one agency in securing that success. 
As to the parent, his scattered children are but the 
diffusion of himself, so to the teachers the labors 
of his pupils seem to be the workings of his own 
mind. Thus are we cheered by the prospect that 
when our voices shall be mute, our chairs vacated — 
when the tall grass shall wave over the place of 
our repose — we shall still act in the minds in which 
we have breathed our own, and survive in the per- 
sons which were so long parts of ourselves. So that 
we part in an hour that is bright with a mysterious 
conviction, that the uniting link can neither be weak- 
ened by the flight of years nor dissolved by the bolt 
of death. 



VI. 



ON THE SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS 
OF CHRIST: 

A LECTURE TO THE STUDENTS OF THE GARRETT 
BIBLICAL INSTITUTE. 



YouNQ Gentlemen, — In accordance with your 
request, I have embodied in a lecture some of the 
Supernatural Characteristics of Christ. But 
I must not address this lecture to you without an 
earnest warning against every attempt to scrutinize 
those secret laws by which the finite and infinite 
natures compose his one person. Because we are 
divinely authorized to predicate of Christ what we 
do of man, and also to predicate of him what we 
do of God, we are not to infer that the relations by 
which this duality becomes personal unity can ever 
be scrutable. In discussing, then, some traits in 
this most mysterious character, I shall restrict my- 
self to what God has said of it, and to deductions 
from these utterances required, by the laws of 
thought. 

I first predicate of Christ that to decide his 

character to be more than human is to determ- 

175 



176 LECTUEES A2s'D ADDRESSES. 

ine its divinity, and that this determination settles 
the divinity of his religion. That his history was 
■unique at every stage is palpable on its surface. 
The few light and simple touches which draw his 
childhood unfold a celestial flower. He was that 
holy thing of which prophetic harps had myste- 
riously sung. By a single stroke of the inspired 
pen his childhood loveliness was thus depicted. ''He 
grew up in favor of God and man." The faces of 
both worlds smiled upon him. The next sketch in- 
forms us that ''he grew and waxed strong in spirit, 
filled with wisdom." Had fraoTance been wafted 

o 

on him from both worlds, his moral sweetness could 
not have been intenser. When, at twelve, he was 
among the literati of the Temple, propounding and 
answering far-reaching questions — blending modesty 
and wisdom so as to astonish without offending the 
great doctors of the law — his response to his chiding 
mother, who found him there, was a flash of light on 
the darkness of the future. 

In his character alone was greatness based on in- 
nocence. In all others this quality was coupled with 
childhood weakness, and was fatal to the claim of 
greatness; but in him, figured by a lamb, it was 
in harmony with a manly spirit, detracting not 
from the superhuman grandeur which invested him. 
The matchless power of this strange combination 
was felt by all who approached him. When he 
vacated the Temple of its profaners, they did not 
fiy before his physical force, but before that mys- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 177 

terious majesty within, revealed by an indignant 
flush which mounted his innocent face. Like God 
in nature, he clothed his goodness in thunder and 
tempest. Though his whole character shone in the 
light of innocence, yet its greatness, decision, and 
sublimity seemed measureless as they were spon- 
taneous. With what terrific significancy did he 
demand of his enemies, ''Which of you convinceth 
me of sin?" The challenge was sweeping. How 
was it met? Every countenance fell — every mouth 
was dumb ! This would have been so in all worlds. 
The blending of this innocence and majesty in 
Jesus made his judge tremble before the prisoner at 
the bar, and wrung from him the avowal of his 
blamelessness, and the proclaimed purpose to take 
no responsibility in his blood. And when, as a 
drooping flower, he hung on the cross, the funereal 
grief of both worlds was fit honor to his innocence 
and majesty. Kindred to this was that other trait 
found in his religious character, which is in entire 
contrast to that of all religious men. Theirs com- 
mence with the pangs of guilt; his in the sunshine 
of innocence. When did confessions of sin or of un- 
worthiness ever escape his lips? His piety, then, 
in its beginning, was radically unlike that of our 
whole race. Never did he utter regret for what he 
had thought, felt, said, or acted, or omitted. How 
could this arrogant claim, though tacitly made, fail 
to cover Christ with derision, had the origin of his 
goodness been like that of other men ? No regret — 



178 LECTURES AXD ADDEES3E3. 

no reproach — no compunction^ even by implication^ 
was ever found in his manifestations. Who was 
thiS; without a tear of contrition — a sigh of repent- 
ant crrief — a confession of wrono;? The root of his 
piety was in innocence; the root of human piety is 
in godly sorrow. TThat would be proper in him 
would^ in any other, be intolerable arrogance. If, 
then, he were sinless, how could there be a greater 
exception to the law of human development ? If 
not — if he inherited sin — how strangely did he take 
up religion without repentance, and practice stain- 
less purity, without a spot, to the end of life ! How 
could his character awaken the admiration of the 
race, and yet at bottom be radically false? 

Xor were his social characteristics less extraor- 
dinary. Who else was ever equally remote from 
laughter and moroseness? He was alone in the 
serene medium he occupied. His never-varying 
placidity would render a mere man unendurable, as 
his heart should respond to those varying impulses 
which it was formed to feel. But who ever com- 
plained for the want of sympathy in Christ? His 
heart related chiefly to the Avorld above, and its 
sympathies flowed through deeper channels; still, 
on fit occasions in his mighty life, the depth and 
richness of his sympathies were evinced by their 
noble outgushings. Others doomed to his priva- 
tions would awaken our pity, but who ever felt that 
emotion toward him? Dead to earthly interest as 
if an angel's heart beat in his bosom — though im- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 179 

passive to social charms, yet without repugnance to 
them — without the slightest tinge of misanthropy. 
His relations to the humanities of society were 
under the law of absorption in the glories of the 
Godhead. Whether at the wedding, the banquet, 
or the funeral, his emotions arose in harmony 
with the occasion. At one, he congratulates; at 
the other, he instructs; at the last, he weeps. 

Another of Christ's claims was inherent affinity 
with Grod. ''I came forth from the Father" — ''I am 
from above" — '^He thought it not robbery to be 
equal with Grod." These are among the astounding 
claims which strangely harmonized with his whole 
bearing. He assumed toward the race the attitude 
of supremacy — the power of giving repose to bewil- 
dered humanity. Who else ever dared to palm 
himself on the world as its patron — its light — its 
deliverer; yet so intimately do these sentiments 
enter into his teachings, that were they extracted 
from it nothing would remain. How deeply it is 
felt that his tacit assumptions far exceed the range 
of all formal expression — as ^^ I and the Father that 
sent me!" '^We will make our abode with him!" 
and the like. What mere prophet, apostle, or angel 
would not shudder to involve such a claim ! These 
claims of Jesus have been sounding through the ages 
for eighteen centuries, and none have been able to 
detect discrepancy between his pretensions and his 
merits. Were he not Divine, this would be the most 
vulnerable point of assault. . This is, indeed, the 



180 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

weakest, if it be not the strongest point in his 
character. 

The work Christ prescribed to himself was great, 
difficult, and complicated ; but when did he ever slip 
or falter in its execution? He poured on his work 
the whole energy of his mighty life, without a 
symptom of weariness. Others, with not a hund- 
redth part of his work on their hands, are impatient 
of delay, and when retarded strike fire against the 
obstacle in their way. But Christ, having no crude 
element in his motives, was, in the presence of ob- 
stacles, calm as a Summer evening; the darkest 
cloud sailing over him left his sky unobscured. 
Were he merely human, the sweep of his plan would 
prove him the wildest of enthusiasts. His pro- 
gramme was to establish a kingdom of Cod pervad- 
ing the whole earth, giving a new moral constitution 
to the race — to do this without education, in the 
face of his nation's prejudice, and despite the uni- 
versal empire of Rome. In accordance with this 
measureless scheme, he proclaimed himself — the 
Son — to be the gift of the Father's love; the field 
he should occupy, the world ; and the commission of 
his ministers, commensurate with the whole race. 
All the records of the race may be challenged to 
furnish another such example. The founders of 
states, the rulers of empires, the discoverers of con- 
tinents, lawgivers, conquerors, and heroes have not, 
on all their brilliant list, an approach toward it. 

How strange ! — the son of a carpenter, emanating 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 181 

from his shop, without letters or titles, without ever 
having seen a map of half the nations he was to 
control, or even heard their names — how strange 
that he should adopt a scheme sweeping over all 
nations, and all their generations ! What was the 
Assyrian, the Grecian, the Eoman empires — erected 
by the conquest of a thousand fields, and cemented 
by the blood of mighty heroes ? — what in extent, in 
grandeur, and in the principle on which they were 
founded — those, in the blood of myriads; this, in 
the dying love of philanthropy? With what calm- 
ness and assurance did the Founder look through his 
own death as the medium of the brightest achieve- 
ments of his great enterprise. Another distinctive 
of Christ was, he commenced his kingdom by appro- 
priating the poor. His manners, tastes, and attain- 
ments were all diverse from those of his chosen 
associates. The great were often his hearers and 
admirers, but never his chosen companions. Among 
the crowds of the sick he was like a nurse in a 
hospital. He waited on pain, and vanquished its 
causes. The whole category of diseases he en- 
countered only to cure. Thus was that very class, 
ignored by all other great men, the special regard 
of Christ. The poor had been made the appendages 
of luxury — the tools of ambition — the instruments 
of war. He made them the friends of his bosom, 
and the inheritors of his kingdom. 

Indeed, the flight of eighteen centuries has not 
fully revealed how far was the carpenter's son in 



182 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

advance of his age. This anticipative feature in his 
scheme proclaimed its transcendent depth and com- 
prehensiveness. It has been ascertained by the 
operation of Christ's kingdom, that to upraise the 
masses is the highest economical interests of society. 
Christ's OEiaiXALiTY as a teacher has been justly 
marked with deep emphasis. When this rare char- 
acteristic distinguishes men, it lies within the bound- 
ary of educated thought — can be developed only by 
discipline. But to all his cotemporaries it was 
known that '' Christ had never learned." It is thus 
palpable, on the very face of his lessons, that he had 
nothing in common with his age; no opinion, taste, 
prejudice, or any other one thing belonging to a Jew 
of Caesar's time. The assertion that he drew on the 
Persian or Eastern religion, or on the Essenes, or 
on the more famous schools of Egypt, is so utterly 
fanciful as not to deserve refutation. His original- 
ity shines through freeness, simplicity, directness, 
and thrilling power of his teaching. All self-made 
men, not excluding Shakspeare himself, have their 
productions tinged with educational colorings. Xot 
so with this o;reat Hio;h Priest of Xature and of 
God. Far from philosophic was his divine teach- 
ing. ISTo argument was based on critically-con- 
structed premises. Compared to his teaching, dia- 
lectic reasoning is an opaque substance between the 
eye and the object. His utterances filled the world 
with a flood of light, revealing God, which the con- 
spiracies of all hostile agencies have failed to quench. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 183 

His lessons still come upon the nations, like incense 
from a higher world, to neutralize the poison they 
breathe. 

Another peculiarity of the Great Teacher was, his 
instant repulse of every national expectation of the 
Messiah. Well did he know how eagerly his nation 
panted for a Messiah that should make their Roman 
conquerors lick the dust. But he told them that 
peacemakers were blessed — that he was no warrior, 
or king, or avenger — that his mission was to save 
them from the very characteristics which they hoped 
would most distinguish him. Thus did he dash at 
once their most cherished hopes. Still, such was the 
ineffable charm which invested his person, that thou- 
sands ceased not to cling to him. What could more 
severely test his power over men than to baffle their 
dearest hopes, and yet retain their utmost confi- 
dence? Again, Christ's exemption from man's in- 
firmity is proved by his singular balance of char- 
acter. What age has not been marked by the 
operation of that law by which two parties advo- 
cate opposite extremes, and a third the medium 
between them. None have been on the exact point 
of equilibrium. Christ was no where else. This 
distinguished the great teacher. Knowing truth 
intuitively, he needed not to compare ideas, or bal- 
ance opposites; the conclusion was seen in the 
premises, and thus all one-sidedness was precluded. 
Let a few lessons be illustrations : His disciples 

must neither renounce their allegiance to Caesar, nor 

16 



184 LECTUBES AND ABDKESSES. 

deny their Messiah at the command of Cassar; the 
Scribes and Pharisees are to be resisted in their 
tradition, but obeyed in the commands of Moses. 

We can not scrutinize our Great Restorer too 
intensely as a reformer. What, as such, did he 
find to approve in society, Church, or State? Yet 
when did he array himself in antagonism to the 
world? The human reformer, finding obstacles in 
his way, which nothing but his death can surmount, 
becomxes restive and bitter by delay, and often 
kindles into a frenzy threatening to sweep away the 
obstacles in his way, and ends with a character 
tinged with malignity. In what beautiful contrast 
to all this did He appear, who went about doing 
good, his history decides. Had all hearts beat in 
his bosom, he could not have been more serene and 
cordial — more patient and hopeful — though all the 
institutions in the world were on his hands for re- 
construction, and a hundred ages the requisite pe- 
riod for the revolution. I remark again that he was 
equally remote from superstition, and v/hat is styled 
liberality. What other uneducated mind tends not 
to superstition or to free-thinking? But how un- 
approachably far was he from either! How cloud- 
lessly this shines in many of his short lessons, can 
not have escaped us. To the priests he said. You 
think that the Sabbath of Moses stands in the let- 
ter; I tell you that it was made for man. The 
same superstition could instigate his murder, but 
not go into the judgment-seat, fearing defilement. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 185 

It was not liberality but charity which, constituted 
the ground of Christ's procedure. 

His scrupulous adherence to every iota of truth 
excluded all error with that laxity involving licen- 
tiousness. How unlike was Christ, at another point, 
to the great sages of antiquity, who maintained that 
the wise only were capacitated to grasp the high 
arguments for the Supreme ! He placed the knowl- 
edge of God within the compass of every class, on 
principles assuming the unity of the race. Hence 
we infer that he was utterly alone in his manner 
of teaching all ethical duties. His was not an elab- 
orated system, wrought out by abstruse and subtile 
argument, but inculcated by precepts shining by 
their own light, and robed in their own authority — 
flowing from the loftiest argument without employ- 
ing a shadow of argument. When did Christ study 
ethics to teach morality any more than God studied 
cesthetics to fashion the landscape? The peerless 
splendor of his mind poured itself forth in those 
living precepts which presuppose principles under- 
lying all duties — as, Blessed are the poor, etc.; 
Do good to them that persecute you, and the like. 
The transcendent beauty of this doctrine is not 
exhibited to such as admire it as a beautiful pic- 
ture, but to such as practice it as a rule of life. 
"What can be more amazing than that the trans- 
cendent hight of these lessons is no bar against 
their permeating the commonest mind. 

Of the many remaininsr characteristics of God's 



186 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

only Son was the increase of reverence for him by 
familiarity with him. It is a social law that dis- 
tance lends enchantment — intimacy dissolves the 
charms and reveals the infirmities which rem^oteness 
had concealed. Thus great men are reduced to 
their proper dimensions, and our estimate becomes 
measured by their qualities. A law the reverse of 
this operated in the case of Christ. The greater 
the disciples' intimacy w4th him, the deeper their 
awe of him. The scale was ascending — their views 
of him gradually rose from the man to the God. 
At first he was the son of Mary — then he spake 
with authority — then he was certainly Elias re- 
turned to earth in resurrection power — next he is 
the promised Messiah ; finally, at the piercing glance 
of his omniscient eye, Peter breaks down, his heart 
dissolves in contrition, and his eye in tears. In 
the same direction his enemies advanced in their 
convictions. At first they regarded him as a fa- 
natic; then inquired whence he derived his singu- 
lar accomplishments. ISText, those sent to arrest 
him, awe-smitten by his majesty, exclaimed, ''ITever 
man spake like this man!" Others, coming to ap- 
prehend him, drop like corpses as they approached 
him. His silent submission made Pilate tremble on 
his judgment-seat; and when guilt was consum- 
mated in his death, the multitude returned smiting 
on their breasts with anguish before his sufi'ering 
majesty. Thus growing familiarity issued in grow- 
ing reverence; instead of disclosing inferiority, it 



CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRIST. 187 

revealed mysterious depths of divinity. That the 
fact of such an existing person in human history 
has been doubted, we blush to concede; but shall 
now resort to none of that abundant evidence by 
which doubt is vanquished, except he has been de- 
scribed. 

If this description be unreal, then this character 
has been drawn by fancy, aided by fable. But to 
fabricate such a character involved greater diffi- 
culty than to possess it, especially for four to do it 
in perfectly-substantial harmony. The only ade- 
quate reason for this character having been actu- 
ally portrayed is, that it has been actualized by 
living example. No poet has created it; no novel- 
ist sketched it; no philosopher invented it. To be- 
lieve it the achievement of fiction requires more 
credulity than to credit its reality in Christ. The 
fact, then, that such a character is described is 
the proof that such a person existed; and the fact 
that he existed is the proof that he is Divine. 
Vitiate that single pretension — his innocence — and 
you make him an impostor, as the perfect harmony 
of his character makes each part of it what all 
other parts are; but if the root of all the trans- 
cendent beauty which adorned his character were 
guilt, then was it a miracle such as the world 
never heard of. 

Who ever studied his life without feeling there 
was blended in it the sublimest precepts and 
the divinest practice — that the flood of truth he 



188 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

poured out was beautiful as the light, lofty as 
heaven, and true as God ! Never did the sun of 
humanity rise so high as in Jesus. The tv/o thou- 
sand years which have fled since he was with us 
have failed to produce one among the millions of 
men who has fully mastered his thoughts, or grasped 
his method, or exactly copied his stainless life. In 
this rapid sketch of Him who stands alone on the 
records of the universe, you will perceive that none 
of his supreme attributes are grouped in his his- 
tory ; only those characteristics are collected which 
beautified the human sphere, leaving the inference 
resistless that his life could not have been what it 
was had not his person been what he claimed — 
''equal with God." 



VII. 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCATING A BIBLICAL 
INSTITUTE IN THE WEST: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CONCORD, N. H. 



Brethren and Friends, — While the expediency 
of a Biblical Institute in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church is being thoroughly discussed, that in New- 
England is employing a most decisive mode of a^rgu- 
ment — its workings are its reasons. It has toiled 
patiently in its probationary sphere for "^ seven years. 
Every eye in the New England ministry has been 
strained to scrutinize its operations. There has 
been but one issue of this rigorous investigation. 
It is this, a united voice for an '' Institute," ring- 
ing from end to end of the land of the Pilgrims. 

This great revolution has been achieved, not by 
a single turning event, not by a series of ingenious 
arguments, not by the preponderating influence of a 
great name, but by the beneficial workings of the 
enterprise itself. These proved themselves harmo- 
nious with the evangelical scheme of the itinerancy, 
that they were a new application of an old prin- 
ciple which that scheme had previously incorpo- 
rated. When this conviction shall pervade a larger 

189 



190 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

portion of the Churcli; she will, througli lier highest 
councils, give her prompt and remorseless sanction 
to the school of the prophets. Then will her bishops 
be her committee of supervision, her conferences be 
her legal guardians, and her prayers her perpetual 
offering. So that long after the weary hands which 
have toiled to establish it shall be cold in death, 
ten thousand voices shall greet its expansion, and 
bless the dark days of its infant agonies. 

No discussion on the merits of the enterprise will 
here be attempted. Its beneficial character must 
now be assumed, so that you may allow me to hint 
at its importance in the great ''American Valley." 
Having just completed a tour of observation through 
this future garden of the New World, I can not 
repress the inspiration of its scenes. The nation 
rising up there has suddenly reached a maturity 
which history records of no other nation. This 
never had, like other nations, a semi-barbarism out 
of which slowly to emerge, and gradually to attain 
civilization through the waste of centuries; it was 
born in full manhood. The great elements of its 
character it imported from the disciplined East; 
these elements it has improved by the giant object 
which the hand of nature has thrown around them 
in the West. The toils, and reverses, and perils 
which often crush the spirit of the emigrant have 
here only elicited reserved energies, so as to in- 
vigorate the mind and enlarge its empire. The 
encountering of obstacles and the achievement of 



BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN THE WEST. 191 

triumplis have here been forced into the relation 
of cause and effect. It was impossible that the 
amplitude of the scale on which nature is displayed 
should be inoperative on man. What mind can find 
itself in this wondrous valley, whose circumference 
is the sweep of eight thousand miles — whose out- 
limits are the hights of Alleghany on the east, the 
Eocky Mountains on the west, the Gulf of Mexico 
on the south, and the inland seas on the north — 
and not feel itself expanded? 

The exhaustless wealth of the Western mines — 
the length and majesty of the rivers — the ocean- 
like extent of the prairies, limited only by the in- 
ambient arch of heaven — are among the peerless 
distinctives of this great country. The rush of 
population to this wide harvest-field has had no 
parallel out of California. Sixty years since, over 
all this eight thousand miles circumference, were 
scattered but one hundred and fifty thousand souls. 
Now, ten times that number are found within a 
single State. This valley, which has half the ex- 
tent of all Europe, four times that of the Atlantic 
States, and twenty times that of all New England, 
must become the theater of stupendous events. 
Here, where my own eyes have seen a single field 
of corn of sufficient extent to make twenty Eastern 
farms — where the first harvest often exceeds in 
value the cost of the soil on which it grows — it is 
impossible that wealth should not rapidly accumu- 
late, and population speedily become dense. Indeed, 
17 



192 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

tlie recent past vouches for the future. Look at 
the city of Chicago, which in less than two years 
has added to its population more than fifty per cent. 
An increase any thing like this ratio would people 
the great valley with scores of millions long before 
the grave will open to receive your youngest chil- 
dren. 

Nor will number alone be the exclusive element 
of power in the West. Another will be found in 
the vigor of character which it shall furnish. Its 
various population represents nearly twenty nations 
of the Old World. Should the same result arise 
from the blending of these nations in the New 
World, as was witnessed by the commixture of 
Eastern and Western minds by the Alexandrian 
and the Eoman conquests, masterly powers, phys- 
ical and intellectual, will here develop themselves. 
The traveler, while gliding over these broad plains, 
revolving such thoughts, feels overpowered by the 
prospects of the future. He hears the tread of 
millions rushing into these exhaustless fields; he 
marks the agencies which are to operate upon them, 
both physically and morally. The fertility of the 
soil, the ease with which it is cultiv^ated, and the 
perpetuity of its productiveness, admit of both the 
accumulation of wealth and the indulgence of indo- 
lence. All history shows that this combination in- 
sures speedy corruption; but far more appalling will 
he regard the moral agency at work. He looks at 
Roman superstition, made palatable by a most al- 



BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN THE WEST. 193 

luring address whicli a tliorougli education for that 
purpose could furnish, and which has marked the 
West for the field of its triumph. Jesuitical arti- 
fice is exhausting its resources for the attainment 
of this object; German neology operates in another 
direction to overthrow our institutions, but with 
not much less fatal efiicacy. The leaders of both 
these classes are learned, adroit, persistent, and in- 
domitable. The one, to make this young republic 
a nation of infidels; the other, to crush it beneath 
the foot of ''his Holiness" which other ages have 
placed on the neck of monarchs. 

In view, then, of this fearful capacity for self- 
corruption, and these powerful temptations to per- 
petrate it, the problem for speedy solution is. How 
shall these influences be counteracted? That the 
ministry of reconciliation is one- of the most puis- 
sant elements employed by God's moral government 
over man, is known no less by its tendency than by 
its history. The legitimate exercise of this ministry, 
and the power of self-government, stand in the order 
of cause and effect; but the qualifications of these 
agents must correspond to the purposes of their 
vocation in the depth and breadth of their culture, 
in high intellectual discipline, in rich and grow- 
ing moral wealth. These guard the pulpit with a 
might which nothing else below a miracle can sup- 
ply. The demand in the West on our pulpit for 
■jhese is loud and unequivocal; these, combined with 
he restored life of God to the inner man of the 



194 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

minister, make the pulpit an agency with which 
Western society can never dispense. Such a min- 
istry is a central luminary around which, as satel- 
lites, schools, and colleges, and seminaries gather. 

To give growing strength to this agency in the 
West, the friends of our ministry have determined 
to open a Methodist Biblical Institute, like 
that at Concord, on the first day of January next, 
near Chicago. That city is the miracle of the new 
world. A more eligible location could not be at- 
tained out of the Atlantic States. That city is the 
gate through which the stream of population passes 
into the boundless prairies beyond. It feels the 
controlling agency of Eastern mind made larger by 
communing with the colossal objects of the West. 
It is distinguished by an amount of intelligence, 
benevolence, and enterprise, in connection with our 
Church, which at no distant period will, in that 
great valley, quicken our institutions into higher 
life. The proximity of the prospective Institute 
to the North-Western University will be an event 
of great importance to both institutions; each to 
a most beneficial extent will act on the other, and 
up to a certain limit can efi'ect a useful exchange 
of labor. 

But you will permit me, friends, before dismiss- 
ing the Western enterprise, to detain you a few 
moments with my own relations to the ''school of 
the prophets" in this place — Concord. I will delay 
only sufficient to reply to the inquiry urged by so 



BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN THE WEST. 195 

many, WJnj do yoic leave the Concord Institute ? 
To this I answer explicitly, the reason of this step 
is not a desire for a broader and brighter sphere 
of public action. If there be such within the range 
of ministerial duties, it is in this case without al- 
lurement; nor has emolument, or fame, or more 
elevated associations any agency in working this 
change; nor has the abatement of interest in this 
noble institution, in its inmates, its officers, its 
workings, or in its sacred halls, acted the smallest 
part in my removal. They are all endeared to me 
by the strongest ties of interesting association. The 
scenes which have opened on us here are among 
those few that are the most deep and tender of life. 
The hundreds of commissioned young men who, 
under the sacred pressure of a call from Heaven, 
have here investigated inspired truth with an earn- 
estness to which nothing but God's voice could have 
moved them, seem still to hover around this con- 
secrated center, though their farewell long since 
trembled on their lips. 

But at the command of duty the dearest and 
highest associations must be sundered. !N"or is it 
dread that the formidable opposition to the Insti- 
tute will again be arrayed against it which it so 
patiently endured at its incipiency, by some who 
should have deeply seated it in the affections of 
their heart; nor the pecuniary embarrassments with 
which it so bravely struggled when it was totally 
without funds; nor do I dissolve my relations to 



196 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

tlie Institute because tlie experiment has in the 
slightest degree been a failure. Directly the re- 
verse! The rigor of the test by which it has been 
tried has developed its inherent vitality — has shown 
that it burst into being by the force of Frovidential 
circumstances, and can never lose its power to live 
till its mission is accomplished. Its present position 
precludes the need of recalling those unique facts 
strewed along its seven years' pilgrimage. ISTor do 
I seek another post in the hope of occupying one 
less toilful. It is true this has been exhaustingly 
laborious; that it has tasked every hour and every 
energy ; that it has compelled us to ivatch while 
others slept. But as claims equally exacting will 
be made in my next field, lighter labor can create 
no incentive to choose it. Nor can the fear of 
diminished support remove me to the West. The 
state of our finances was never so hopeful as at 
this moment. The jnass of Methodistic mind in 
New England havina; reached the conclusion that 
the Institute supplies a desideratum in our Church, 
it will advance to its support. By cautious and 
successive steps it has been guided to this con- 
clusion; the light of observation has fallen on its 
path, and conviction has culminated. 

Indeed, there are cheering indications that the 
dark days of its pecuniary embarrassment are num- 
bered. In one word, a teacher's place in this In- 
stitute, with all its anxieties, privations, and toils, 
is one of the most eligible to which I could look 



BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN THE WEST. 197 

forward in this militant state. You ask, Why then 
abandon it ? I answer, To occupy a field louder 
in its claims, and sterner in its demands. This is 
the 7notive and the 07ili/ onotive within the com- 
pass of thought. The West — the generous, mag- 
nanimous West — rich in its resources, irrepressible 
in its energies, magnificent in its achievements — 
stretching one hand to the Atlantic on the east, 
and the other over the Pacific on the west — the 
future center of nations where the destiny of the 
species may yet be arbitrated — this grand, myste- 
rious reservation of God for the home of his Church, 
is the place for our next ininisterial school. There, 
near Chicago, the future London of the New World, 
will it stand on the salubrious banks of that inland 
sea. I do not leave you, then, to abandon this sub- 
lime object to which I have consecrated what little 
remains to me of life, but to promote it more eff'ect- 
ually in the midst of a broader field. But let me 
beseech every friend of ministerial education to act 
unwaveringly for the interests of this Institute. 

Now, my dear young brethren, having taken 
these few retrospective glances, may I be permitted 
to make one or two prospective utterances? Earn- 
estly desiring to divert none of your number from 
Concord Institute — possessing the advantage of 
seven years' priority — I simply suggest that you 
leave Chicago Institute to those whose residences 
are nearer to it than to this place, and to those 
intending to seek their future itinerant field in the 



198 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

West. Sucli we shall greet witli the liveliest in- 
terest in our distant halls, and assure them that 
their associations with Western mind in the class- 
room will be a momentous preparative to their 
higher command of that mind in the itinerancy. 
There will be formed an acquaintance with those 
peculiar agencies which have so largely contributed 
to form Western character. 



VIII. 
THE TEACHER'S PARTING WORD: 

AN ADDRESS TO THE FIRST GRADUATING CLASS OF THE 
GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE. 



Beloved Pupils, — Prior to a few parting words 
to you, will you permit me to utter a single sug- 
gestion to the audience ? Friends of ministerial 
education, the events of this evening assure you 
that the Garrett Biblical Institute shall have a 
history all its own. This first class which it grad- 
uates carries us back to its origin and forward to 
its futurity. The developments of its future will 
never cease to borrow splendor from the facts of 
its origin. The premature departure of its noble 
founder has only made dearer to memory her beau- 
tiful character. Cold is that great heart which 
conceived the institution, motionless the hand that 
founded it, and sightless the eyes that looked with 
maternal intensity on its infant being. But though 
''dead she yet speaketh;" and the tones of her gen- 
tle voice shall create the music of ages. Hers is 
among those embalmed names which were never 
born to die. It will have utterance on distant 
shores, where its anointed students shall blow the 

199 



200 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

living trumpet. Would that Godlike woman were 
present with us to-night ! And is she not ? I 
know that face is pale which was mantled with 
blushes at our opening, when designated by the 
thrilling eloquence of our lamented Watson. I 
know that bosom is still which then yearned and 
throbbed for the elevation of our ministerial stand- 
ard; but I do not know that the seraphic spirit 
that w^armed it shares not in our deep emotions. 
If from their seats of light the just look down on 
their pilgrim brethren — if they participate in the 
deepest emotions of rejoicing humanity — she now 
mysteriously hears the voice that breathes her 
name, and secretly hovers around us wdiile we 
commemorate her immortal achievement. But if 
her ethereal abode is too lofty for such commin- 
gling, it is not unadapted to her survey of those 
imperishable results of her bequest, w^hich shall 
brighten the expanding circle of coming ages. 

Turning to you, beloved class, I beg to remind 
you of the point you have reached, and of the re- 
sponsibilities which ensue. Here our ways divide, 
our relations dissolve, and a new sphere of action 
opens before you. You will no more reappear to 
fill the seats you have vacated in our halls. The 
itinerant field opens before you, and we trust will 
smile beneath the culture of your hands. But this 
change from being students in the Institute to be- 
coming itinerants on the circuit but partially sepa- 
rates you from your former selves. The student 



THE teacher's PARTING WORD. 201 

will ever look forward to the itinerant, and lie will as 
steadily look back on the student. How broad soever 
may be the limits of your mental development, of 
this one fact, your researches have convinced you 
that this culture is only in its incipiency. Should 
it ever be completed in the remotest and brightest 
futurity, you are sure that this consummation lies 
far beyond the limits of your earthly pilgrimage. 
A finished education makes no part of the history 
of the universe. A stationary mind would obstruct 
the wheels of Providence, and make a jarring chord 
in the harp of infinite praise. Your culture has 
begun, but is not finished. The functions of your 
ministry should not obstruct but advance it. In 
all the unfoldings of divine mystery no scene may 
more astonish us than the unlikeness of our present 
selves to our future selves. 

But though to dwarf the intellect involves ineffa- 
ble guilt, the advance of that endowment is not 
your only mission. Your institutional advantages 
are indeed priceless. They are ordained to throw 
forward an accumulating light upon all the stages 
of your endless advancement. But a stronger ele- 
ment than intellectual wealth appertains to the 
ministerial character. It must be imbued by the 
mighty unction of the living God. Whatever is 
substituted for this unction is no less to be dreaded 
by the minister than ignorance itself. Acquire 
whatever you may of all that adorns the mental 
being. Never let it escape you, my dear brethren, 



202 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

that; ^vaiiting this supernatural element, youi' de- 
fect would be radical. 

The sacredness of the ministerial character is no 
where found separate from this heavenly endow- 
ment. This was the matchless distinction of the 
fathers in the great Wesleyan reform. Their glow- 
ing philanthropy had been kindled at the altar of 
God. It is true, a portion of them were peerless 
in their scholarship ; long had they communed with 
the great minds of departed ages — enriched their 
stores by the mental wealth of the dead and of the 
living — still, the splendors of their learning shone 
subordinately to the flame of their devotion. This 
made their aim single, their zeal intense, their en- 
ergies undivided, and their self-sacrifice a habit of 
life, and their sacred sympathy commensurate with 
the world's moral miseries. In perilous achieve- 
ments they were heroes — in spirit they were mar- 
tyrs — in success they were apostolical — in unself- 
ishness sublime. Commune evermore, my dear 
brethren, with these model ministers. At the earn- 
est call of your voice they will reappear on the 
stage, and act over again their noble part before 
your eyes. May they ever live in their successors, 
and even be exceeded by their sons ! 

Another element of power found in the vital doc- 
trines of our Great Teacher I have not time to 
even specify. Let me, however, beg you not to 
overlook the genius of our religion, that it is founded 
on miraculous facts — that its partictilar duties are 



THE teacher's parting word. 203 

enjoined by the inculcation of far-reaching princi- 
ples — that its vicarious character gives no more 
luster to mercy than it does terror to justice — that 
its grand aim is not merely to civilize humanity, 
but to restore and purify it — not to fit man for so- 
ciety, but for the skies. No elegance of manner, 
no depth of culture, no personal blandishments can 
take the place of these vital truths. These must 
be arranged in their order, traced to first princi- 
ples, and applied in their details. 

But in these parting words permit me to remind, 
you, brethren, of your special relation to the insti- 
tution. In Methodism an institutional education of 
our ministry is a modern expedient. You are the 
first representatives of such a training to the Church 
in the North- West. In a most inquisitive gaze 
every eye will be fixed on you. In your character 
will be studied the character of the institution. 
Should yours exhibit an awkward, forbidding, or 
morose bearing, what will be the inference as to 
your "Alma Mater f Not that she is adapted to 
form ministerial character, but rather to manufac- 
ture churlish monks — not to qualify men, but to 
unfit them for that varied adaptation demanded in 
the itinerant field. On the other hand, should your 
social character be imbued with levity or pedantry, 
what else will be referred to the institution which 
is supposed to have formed it ? 

Let us hope, then, that your class will appreciate 
the immense importance of fairly representing this 



204 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

newly-adopted mode of our ministerial education, 
that the beauty of its character will allure others 
to our sacred halls where that was molded, and 
that it will be a worthy forerunner of those com- 
missioned thousands which are to pass from thence 
into the Lord's great harvest-field of the world. 

"Who that nobly aspires at higher ministerial at- 
tainments would not recoil from the Institute should 
they find in its graduates those revolting char- 
acteristics ? Whether this shall be the mode of 
educating our junior ministry is not yet an en- 
tirely-adjudicated question. In the character of our 
students will be sought the test of experiment. If 
that character shall have serenity, beauty, and 
force, then will it inscribe approval in letters of 
light on the most enduring monuments of the age. 
When our graduates shall exhibit that prismatic 
beauty of character which shines in the growing cul- 
ture of intellect, the expanding richness of thought, 
and the intenser flame of devotion — when the ar- 
dor of Peter, the affection of John, and the heroism 
of Paul shall shed on that character their blended 
brightness — then will our Church regard the prob- 
lem solved ; then will you honor your institution, 
your instructors, your Church, your race, and your 
God; then will you live to be loved, die to be 
lamented, and enter the general assembly to be 
greeted by your converts, and crowned by your 
Master. 

Should the delusion to any extent affect you, 



THE teacher's PARTING WORD. 205 

that education is an end, and not a means to a 
loftier end, so far would the perversion of your 
education be complete. The end is action — wise, 
persistent, all-mastering action — action that yields 
to no obstacle — that knows no defeat — that erects 
in every field of godlike enterprise monuments of 
its sanctified power. 

And now, beloved pupils, let the hour that sepa- 
rates us attest to our final purpose — a purpose of 
deep and everlasting self-consecration — a purpose 
which shall command all the powers of our nature, 
and all the motives of our being — a purpose which 
shall control all our acquired abilities, all our in- 
herited faculties, and all our gracious attainments — 
a purpose which shall lay under contribution the 
subjective and objective to that one immortal aim. 
Then shall we live less for the present and more 
for the future — less for ourselves and more for 
others — less for earth and more for heaven. 

Then when earth's great drama shall be wound 
up — when all prophecy shall become history, and 
all history shall have been completed — when its 
vast volume shall have been thrown open on the 
judgment-seat for the race to read, and the divided 
throng shall enter each its respective abode, may 
ours not be wanting the souls we shall have won ! 
There shall be renewed our suspended intercourse, 
and the farewell of this period become the greeting 
of that. 



IX. 
MAN INDIVIDUAL-MAN SOCIAL: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SO- 
CIETIES OF THE UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY. 



Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Society, 
AND Friends, — In obedience to the call with 
which you have honored me, I have been com- 
pelled, in the midst of pressing cares, hastily to 
prepare for the occasion — to dispense with that de- 
liberate preparation imperiously demanded by our 
annual addresses. So intense has been my desire 
for the mental culture of our young men, that to 
decline any effort to promote it would be unmanly. 
But how far a burning desire for this will compen- 
sate for sweeping thought and enchanting style — 
which most contribute to this — yourselves must de- 
termine. 

The theme for the occasion is rtiaii an individ- 
ual, and man a society. On this broad subject, 
which volumes could not exhaust, I propose to de- 
tain you but for a brief period. The axiomatical 
injunction of Greece, ''Know thyself," will have 

undiminished pertinency while any of the great 

18 207 



208 LECTUEES AKD ADDRESSES. 

problems of our being remain unsolved. Through 
all the ages which will fail to raise the covering of 
mystery from those secrets, '^ the proper study of 
mankind will be man." 

I. Let us direct a searching glance toward him, 
physically, intellectually, and morally, 

1. The physicpol man is the combination of all that 
is exquisite in the animal structures of all the ages 
of geology, and of all the existing tribes of our 
globe — it is the noblest material work ever con- 
structed by the Divine Architect. Kor is this less 
true of the purposes for which it was formed. Its 
tenant is a spirit kindled by Jehovah's breath, hav- 
ing a domain of its own controlling interests, which 
no thought can measure, and fed by the living fires 
of the Eternal Spirit. Such an object we would 
not adore like classic Greece, but would furnish it 
a culture in harmony with its most delicate laws. 
The dirge of monastic pietism, which crushes the 
physical man, was the music of a departed age. 
The starving and flagellation of the cell, based on 
that paganism which pronounced matter an eternal 
evil, have given place to a better philosophy, bap- 
tized in a purer Christianity. It was not in clas- 
sical Greek but in Gospel Greek that the body was 
entitled the Infinite Spirit's temple. To leave this 
divine residence to dilapidate can not be innocent. 
While the tie remains which binds the mind to the 
body, ^'Mens sana in cor pore sano'' will remain 
true. Their reciprocal action is mighty and un- 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 209 

ceasing. In such a body only can the spirit be 
clear as the upper ether, and cheerful as the light 
of morning. No law of health, then, can be vio- 
lated without the infraction of a higher law. No 
matter whether this violation is by muscular inac- 
tion or by mental overaction, the penalty is never 
slight or remote. 

2. But in adverting to mmi intellectual, I 
must beg you to ascend to a higher sphere of in- 
quiry, and contemplate that which, in kind, is 
alone in the universe. In this nature man's kin- 
dredship is not to animals, but to angels. His 
mind is an actor ; it takes rank with the origina- 
ting powers of the universe. It has the structure, 
faculties, laws, and function all its own. By its 
intuitions truth is seen as the sun is by the eye. 
By its discursive powers truths are analyzed and 
synthesized till its generalization pervades the whole 
field of thought. 

In his intellectual nature of a threefold classiiica- 
tion, there is a proportionately-small class endowed 
with genius. This is called immortal, and makes 
every thing so which it touches. Its glow intensi- 
fies into a delirium, whose brilliancy enchants the 
ages. In its infantile simplicity and supernatural 
shoots of irregular power, it blends the baby and 
the cherub. Its subject is an object of both pity 
and envy. Genius has points of contrast with tal- 
ent. Still of the master minds of the race are 
these two illustrious categories — the one as bright 



210 LECTUEES AXD ADDEESSES. 

in fancy as the otlier is deep in reason. Imagina- 
tion and invention glow in tlie former, as conception 
and comparison distinguisli the latter. The flight 
of genius is through the ideal realm, which it peo- 
ples with the unfallen ; the task of reason is to ad- 
just the stern realities which it finds in the tan- 
gible universe. While invention is the boast of 
genius, execution is the glory of talent. But con- 
trast may give place to comhination — genius and 
talent may blend — then the ethereal and the solid, 
the inventive and the exectUive, the originator and 
the cultivator, unite to form the representative, the 
monumental mind. In sttch a mind the spirit of 
the ao;e is born, the central ideas of history are 
orio-inated. 

o 

But when these endowments exist apart, why is 
greater nobility awarded to genius than to talent ? 
]^ot becatise its wizard power summons into being 
its new, stupendous creations, making its relation 
higher to business life, but partly because it meets 
the mystic demand of our nature, and partly be- 
cause it is oftener combined with talent; that is, 
genius oftener comprehends talent than it is com- 
prehended by talent. Thus the former is oftener 
prominent than the latter where they are found in 
combination. But irrespective of all these distinct- 
ives, intellect is stamped with a greatness which 
sustains its relation between its nature and its des- 
tiny. Still, this generic grandeur is never in con- 
flict with specific variety. Of this a type is fur- 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 211 

nisliecl by tlie physical universe. Nature is not all 
equal lines, smooth surfaces, or eternal plains; its 
beautiful face is variegated by hill and dale, by 
mountains and valleys, by land and ocean, by plan- 
ets, suns, and stars. Nor is this a larger variety 
than society furnishes in harmony with the variety 
of the underlying intellect — minds unequal in power, 
capacity, and taste — in intelligence, activity, and 
energy. The mass of minimum intellect amuses it- 
self with atoms — the maximum intellect sports with 
w^orlds. The medium intellect occupies all the va- 
rious space between. While the last buries him- 
self in the furrow, where he communes with the 
clods, the first weighs the worlds of light which he 
surveys from the peaks of the globe. But the class 
of Newtons who measure the comet's flight, or of 
the Franklins who steal the lightning from the 
chambers of heaven, is small. Most minds are con- 
tent to never burst away from the narrow inclos- 
ures of common thought. To expect equality, 
either in endoAvments or improvements, would be 
Utopian as the wildest dream. Of such minds no 
world was ever composed. 

This intellectual variety is accompanied with a 
corresponding dissimilarity through the whole do- 
main of emotional nature. Hence, the positive and 
negative belong no less to society than to electric- 
ity — they relate to all earth's categories, and open 
the broadest, channels for mutual culture and 
bliss. 



212 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

3. But there is still a loftier conception of hu- 
manity in '}nan moral. 

The very construction of the framework within 
evinces the paramount greatness of our own moral 
nature. It is on this spiritual side of his nature 
that man stands nearest to his Maker. On this fac- 
ulty the Divine image is most legibly impressed — 
here the seal of Jehovah is least effaceable. The 
functions assigned to this power are not to discrimi- 
nate between profit and loss — between what is court- 
eous and uncivil, or to act in the domain of esthetics, 
distinguishing the beautiful from the deformed — but 
to discriminate between right and wrong — between 
holiness and sin — and to operate impulsively in har- 
mony with such perceptions. 

This is the only endowment of the mind which 
could not have been other than it is. As the moral 
nature of God is the crowning perfection of all his 
great attributes, equally conspicuous does that na- 
ture shine amid human powers. This conclusion is 
reached by the original construction of the mind it- 
self no less than from an experience which claims 
universality. The philosophy which inspires not 
veneration for this loftiest faculty of our nature 
must be falsely so called. It is true the horizon of 
moral relations expands slowly before this unfolding 
power, but hereafter that expansion will go on with 
a sublime movement till the principle of conscience 
shall become absolute and shall pervade the whole 
man. Till this representative of God's -image shall 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 213 

become installed over the world within — till it shall 
acquire this sovereignty over the whole soul, it can 
not be— as is intended — an image of Jehovah's gov- 
ernment over the universe. It is almost without a 
figure that God is called an almighty conscience, 
and his government the omnipotence of right. With 
fit allowance this is true of our own moral nature. 
Its absolute despotism is the soul's sublimest free- 
dom. This power, whose seat is the bosom of God, 
and under whose authority would arise the harmony 
of the universe, ought to have might as it has 
right — it ought to have sovereignty in its sway as 
it has elevation in its nature; then would the blaze 
of millennial glory spontaneously burst forth, con- 
signing to oblivion the moral ruins of the past. 
Eeason can prove a God, but only conscience can 
see him, and in this vision a principle becomes 
transformed into an affection — the principle of right 
becomes identified with the emotion of right and 
endows it with supreme ascendency. The simple 
existence of this faculty proclaims a corresponding 
quality in actions and character. The objections to 
its universality prove the very thing which is re- 
jected. It is alleged ''that conscience must be the 
changing creature of education, otherwise acts di- 
rectly opposite could not be approved by it; as, for 
instance, if conscience be a universal faculty, the 
conscience of the pagan parent could not direct her 
to murder her child, and that of a Christian mother 
to cherish hers." But is not the fallacy palpably in 



214 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

confounding the opposite modes of carrying out the 
same design ? Both mothers designing the good of 
their children, were directed to it by the same fac- 
ulty in opposite modes. No delineation can here be 
attempted of the functions of this faculty. We 
know it acts prospectively, introspectively, and re- 
trospectively — that it searches the future, present, 
and past with an eye of fire— that, when guilty, it 
can curtain with gloom the whole arch of heaven — 
when innocent, it can kindle morning light in the 
deepest midnight dungeon. 

4. But in the galaxy of human powers I direct 
attention to one more — the will — which is the cen- 
tral energy of all the rest. This crowning power of 
man distinguishes him from the whole mindless uni- 
verse. A will in him is expressive of one in his 
stupendous author. As without the Divine will 
nothing had been, so without the human will noth- 
ing could be done to moral purpose. In this sub- 
lime faculty resides the man, the personality, the 
doer of all that is achieved. Where this is not, 
action can not be, character can not be, praise or 
blame can not be, and all moral government were 
an impossibility. This is the deep fountain of orig- 
ination, the only source of what was not the fiat at 
which every entity emerged from emptiness. The 
will is more than the fulcrum of the soul. Itself 
can act against the highest behests of God and the 
mightiest motives within Infinite resources. The 
will is so related to character as to shape destiny. 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 215 

Without it all other faculties would be a stupendous 
impertinency. This power has not unfitly been en- 
titled the supernatural. Its sphere is beyond that 
of cause and effect. It is related to all agencies, 
but controlled by none. It can act, but it can not 
be acted upon. It demands a condition for its oper- 
ation, but rejects all causes of it. The intellect 
might be clear as the highest ether, the affections 
warm as a mother's love, the fancy rich as the rain- 
bow's beauties, but without the sovereignty of the 
will the mass would be stagnant, as all other endow- 
ments would be an utter waste of the most precious 
material. 

II. I now proceed to consider man social, or 
humanity in its aggregate aspects. 

The historian never ceases to be haunted by the 
analogy which makes a nation a great organic per- 
sonality — an ideal embodiment, endowed with indi- 
vidual characteristics. In this aspect a peoples' 
soul is a great unit, composed of numberless in- 
dividual souls — a stupendous public mind, made up 
of numberless single minds. This complex person, 
embodying many consciousnesses like the isolated 
individual, has a character, a responsibility, and a 
retribution. But these analogies fail when the ques- 
tion of immortality arises. Before the individual 
soul a destiny stretches out endless as the eternal 
years of God, while the destiny of the national 
soul pervades but a few ages. This has its retri- 
bution within the circle of the sun, that often the 

19 



216 LECTUEE3 AXL ADDRESSES. 

dead are raised and the liviig are changed. When 
we demand, T\'here is the nation that has endured 
the test of its responsibilities ? echo answers, Where ? 
Was it Babylon, that center of a great empire ? It 
has sunk like a millstone in the ocean. Was it 
Jerusalem, in which God's great Son sojourned? 
Xot one stone is left upon another. Was it 
Eome, the world's mistress? A thousand years 
have wheeled over its great septilcher. Xor is 
there a nation on the globe which has not since 
been vanquished by some lordly conqueror. The 
national longevity has its exact measure in the 
national character. History, which is the book of 
judgment, points to the tomb of nations to which, 
as to their gehenna, their sins have doomed them. 
While individual offenders survive forever, the night 
of the grave is the national oblivion. ]\Iany a vir- 
tuous citizen, guiltless of national offense, shares in 
the public infliction, and is compensated at the res- 
urrection of the just. Our organic national person- 
ality has a mind to think, a heart to feel, a will to 
execute. If that intellect be wise, that heart pure, 
and that will strono; for the ri4>:ht, then will the 
glad eureka peal through the ages, proclaiming the 
thrilling solution of the problem of history in the 
consummation of national hope. 

To secure the intelligence of man social, fotir 
great agencies have been ptit in requisition — the 
school, the jycess, the jpost, and the pulpit. The 
three closelv-connected branches into which the 



I 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 217 

school should be regarded are, the primary, the 
academic, and the collegiate. The plea for nature 
in preference to art ignores the fact that education 
is nature in her progressive advances. Separate 
the one from the other, and at what point would 
you sunder them? In the very cradle education 
commences its molding process. Both the mental 
and social constitution make this process utterly 
inseparable from existence. The real inquiry, then, 
is not v/hether a human being shall be educated — 
this he must be — but whether he shall be improved 
or perverted by his education. It is either to cramp, 
distort, or develop his powers. Its high aim is to 
ascertain and employ the means fitted to the ends 
of life. That this is best accomplished by com- 
petent instructors, is suggested by all the analogies 
of nature and religion. It is by a never-changing 
law of mind that self-improvement advances in exact 
ratio as the means are appropriate, and as attention 
is intense. 

The exceptions to this are only apparent, not 
real. When connected thought seems to have the 
spontaneity of instinct to rush through the mind 
like lightning through the heavens, it is only after 
patience and depth of thought have been the soul's 
habit. No untrained mind can be conformed to 
unperverted nature. To be without a correct edu- 
cation, is to be misguided by a perverting one, 
which creates the demand for reconstruction. It 
is impossible to mistake the voice of history which, 



218 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

in harmony with the science of mind, represents 
the highest advance of human powers as resulting 
from the best use of the best educational instru- 
ments. 

We institute no invidious comparisons between 
the three educational institutions. Commencing 
with the primary, and advancing toward the uni- 
versity, we find each is indispensable to the other. 
Who can doubt whether the primary school alone 
would dwarf the average intellect? Do you de- 
mand, then, how its alumnus often overtowers him 
of the university? We answer, categorically, be- 
cause he bathes more frequently than the college 
graduate in the bright atmosphere made luminous 
by that highest class of institutions. Childhood, 
reflecting the sweet beams of life's morning, is in- 
tensely lovely, but comparatively worthless if cut 
off from manhood. Thus the connection is vital 
between the lowest and highest educational depart- 
ments. The one is a prerequisite to the other, but 
can never be its substitute. The same wisdom that 
builds the school-house will advance to erect the 
college, as it well knows that common intelligence 
could not long survive the absence of higher learn- 
ing. This conclusion is sustained by the verdict of 
man. As no civilized portion of the race, ancient 
or modern, has restricted itself to a single grade of 
institutions, how can a democracy do it? It must 
have brain to surmise and the school to exercise 
that organ. 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 219 

By what language shall we portray that wisdom 
which has bidden us to burn our libraries, break 
down our presses, demolish our school-houses, stop 
our post, and arrest the lightning of heaven on 
whose wings w^e send our messages ? Such as 
would send us back to the unmingled light of 
nature, and to the sweet simplicity of barbarism, 
have yet to learn the first principles of life's lofty 
aim; they have to vanquish that self-delusion which 
facts and principles can put to flight; they have to 
learn that three-fourths of all our criminals are 
from the one-fourth of the least educated; that 
when, under stringent law, more crimes are pun- 
ished, it is not because more crimes are committed, 
but because more are detected; A thousand facts 
conspire to assure us that truth is the appointed 
instrument of social elevation; that knowledge is 
the native element in which truth flourishes; and 
that instruction is the ethereal element on which it 
thrives. 

Another agency with which man-repuhlic can not 
afibrd to part is the pulpit. The fact that this 
agency borders on the supernatural argues not its 
slightest unfitness to social purposes. If it be God's 
great instrumentality, it is man's supreme conserva- 
tor. It shall stand while the world endures. "What 
is its message but the great redemption? what its 
mission but the regeneration of the race? Who is 
its incumbent but God's anointed herald? but Jeho- 
vah's own mouthpiece? It encounters stupendous 



220 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

antagonisms embodied in the vices of centuries, and 
in the ravings of the pit. Its range is through all 
the ao^es of time and all the nations of the race. 
Its lesson is man's immortality, its work his prepar- 
ation for the grave. Its history will disclose a scene 
of subjective wonders defiant of a parallel^one that 
shall awaken both songs and shrieks. Of man so- 
cial the pulpit is the abiding friend; it vindicates 
his inherent rights; it enjoins his public duties; it 
moves him to the vis;orous achievement of them. 
Let it then sink deep into our convictions that the 
pulpit should appropriate the philosophy, the civil- 
ization, and the spirit of the age, and herself be- 
come the public conscience. 

At the bidding of no prince or people can its 
voice sink to silence. No matter by what lips it is 
uttered, that voice is portentous which proclaims 
religion has no concern with politics. This is ever 
a premonition that villainy is on foot. Who is 
thus at war with conscience can advance but one 
more daring step, and say to the Omniscient eye, 
^^Be shut." Great wrongs can not be subverted, and 
great rights vindicated, but by the pulpit. This 
must be the impersonation of the world's conscience. 

To man social the agency of the press is next in 
power to that of the pulpit. It has in four centu- 
ries filled more libraries with the world's standard 
intellectual wealth than all the millionaires of man's 
previous history had done. The library is the con- 
tents of the world's knowledge; the prodigious 



I 



MAN liN DIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 221 

memory of the race. This, like the coral island, is 
ever expanding. The press swells the stupendous 
pile by depositing in it such mental gems as oblivion 
had previously engulfed. To that mighty devourer 
the press efficaciously says, '' Thus far and no fur- 
ther." The press is yet to gather much from the 
ravages of the past — much that is rich in ancient 
lands, the offspring of departed generations, and de- 
posit it here. In another sphere this great agency 
sends out its living swarms; some honey-bearing, 
some venomous — all born to die. But these in their 
flight, from the daily to the quarterly, glitter with 
intelligence which reaches the meanest cottage. 
Through them oratory utters its sparkling words, 
poetry weaves its magic spells, romance fabricates 
its ideal realms, history records its deep lessons. 
Nor do they fail to exhibit the four symbols of nat- 
ural science — the telescope, the crucible, the dia- 
gram, and the pickax. This influence, transient as 
it seems, has an aggregate result in swelling the 
precious material in thought's immortal repository. 
But while the press is the great conservator of 
thought, the post is its sleepless propagator. While 
that preserves books which sweep the whole horizon 
of learning — books which are the great voices of 
time — this propagates the living echoes of those 
voices. "While the mail does this through the daily, 
weekly, monthly, and quarterly, so as to permeate 
the whole public organism, the net-work of the elec- 
tric wires has woven its lightning texture over con- 



222 LECTUKES AND ADDEESSES. 

tinents, sending the same thouglit in a single hour 
from ocean to ocean, thrilling at once every fiber of 
the great public heart. 

Finally, we can only glance at man national in 
regard to his authority and corresponding duty. 
Wielding as does this nation these elevating agen- 
cies; how lofty must be its responsibility 1 The very 
structure of the individual's mind proves self-eleva- 
tion to be its Creator's purpose. That self-control 
is a nation's duty is equally clear from the social 
constitution. The powers of every legitimate gov- 
ernment are ordained of God. Though the Bible 
no where prescribes the decisive test of what legiti- 
mately constitutes these ordained powers, wherever 
such government exists it demands implicit obe- 
dience to it as to God's requirement. Eebellion 
against it is, therefore, political and ^^noral treason. 
The individual's rights are protected and his dis- 
putes arbitrated by the magistrate. But the nation 
being without such a guardianship must be self-pro- 
tective. By its governmental power it must secure 
domestic order and international justice. The sword 
of the magistrate must maintain the one, and the 
sword of the warrior the other. The governmental 
army sustains the same relation to a revolutionary 
province and to a foreign aggression as the execu- 
tive magistracy to the individual ofi'enders. While 
the sword of either should never be unsheathed only 
at the call of justice, it should never return to its 
scabbard till rebellion be crushed. The duty of this 



MAN INDIVIDUAL — MAN SOCIAL. 223 

is commeDSurate with the crime of rebellion. The 
duty of lawful self-protection, under the Divine 
civil institution, is invested with the san^e authority 
as every other Divine claim. The failure of govern- 
ment to em.ploy every energy to its utmost extent, 
to accomplish this, is not merely despicable in the 
eye of history, but guilty before high heaven. We 
can not ignore the application of this principle to 
the terrific outbreak in this Eepublic. What a page 
shall be written in the history of this century when 
the historian shall record . the secret plots of the 
slave-power against the noblest Government on 
which the sun has shone. Advancing in its daring 
rapacity, its demands became more haughty till the 
long- controlled Government broke from its grasp. 
In that hour its plans of treason burst into execu- 
tion to shatter the Union and rend the Constitution. 
That agency, wielding the great powers of govern- 
ment, made it subservient to that stupendous crime. 
Not for one moment can we doubt whether this be 
a revolt against the Divine scheme for the world's 
advance in Christian civilization — whether it be 
both an impious defiance against God's providence, 
and a huge crime against universal humanity. Is 
it not as utterly void of moral justification as of 
constitutional validity? Is it not the solemn duty 
of this Christian Government to blot out from under 
these heavens an institution which thirsts for frater- 
nal blood, and pants to quench the highest hopes of 
humanity — an institution which can not survive 



224 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

anotlier a2;e without rekindlinsi; the dreadful flame 
of civil war, and mantling^ these bri2:ht realms with 
its midnight horrors? 

And now, young gentlemen, allow me to commend 
to you those high attainments which will harmonize 
your own great forces with themselves, with society, 
and with the universe. Then will you decline no 
duty, shrink from no responsibility, withhold no 
sacrifice, be allured by no flattery, and deterred by 
no obstacle. The beautiful, the true, and the good, 
blending in a higher than Platonic luster, shall be 
the Christian trio, each preventing the distortion of 
the other, and all blending in symmetrical character. 
Then will an iron vigor of purpose, a divine sweet- 
ness of heart, an immaculate purity of conscience 
secure the highest ends of both lives, and rapidly 
mature those germinant virtues w^hich will prove 
the Christian to be the highest style of man. 



X. 



ON THE USE AND IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL 
CULTURE: 

AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE GARRETT 
BIBLICAL INSTITUTE. 



Young Gentlemen, — I owe it to you to be un- 
disguised in the few utterances I shall make on 
your mental culture. You will not expect me to 
entertain you with glowing pictures of the ''ethe- 
real powers you have inherited/' or ''of the peerless 
hights to which they may raise you/' or of the 
grandeur of those achievements by which you may 
exceed all priority. For less amusing and more 
substantial purposes I engage in this brief discus- 
sion. My aim will be to glance at the method and 
importance of self-knowledge, especially in the in- 
tellectual sphere. 

"Know thyself" was a comprehensive precept of 

ancient wisdom; it has been virtually inculcated by 

both Eastern and Western philosophy — by profane 

and sacred instruction. The most highly gifted and 

cultivated of the race have regarded the human 

mind the measure of all things lying within the 

225 



226 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES. 

human sphere. An acquaintance with that^ there- 
fore, is indispensable to a knowledge of these. But 
a correct acquaintance with himself at the begin- 
ning of his course would be no less difficult to the 
student than it would be important to his success. 
As this comprehensive, accurate self-knowledge is 
never inherited, but is ever attainable, the student 
begins by either underrating or overrating himself. 
Some of the results with which an overestimate 
is pregnant are indodlity, generated by this too 
favorable self-estimate — the concealment of defects — 
consequent relaxation of efforts to advance — felt in- 
dignation at the exposure of defects. In this state 
failure ensues ; '^ disappointment laughs at hope's 
career," as the student attempted what was be- 
yond his ability. Nor is intellectual advancement 
less certainly impeded by the opposite extreme. It 
will be a bar to those attempts at the practicable 
which are indispensable to the march of intellect; 
it will prevent that vigor of purpose which is pro- 
moted by the confidence that difficulties lessen 
as we approach them, and vanish when we reso- 
lutely assail them. These erring judgments are in- 
evitable till corrected by comparison with a true 
standard, and such a comparison is a work of time 
and caution, and derives importance from its rela- 
tion to self-discipline, and to preparation for future 
engagements. There is one necessity devolving on 
the student, beyond the mere inception of his course, 
indispensable to his ultimate success; it is the selec- 



MENTAL CULTURE. 227 

tion of the literary and scientific objects of his 
pursuit. The narrowness of human powers, and 
the brevity of their assigned period for improve- 
ment, demand this. This selection is wisely made 
when it looks, primarily, to the invigorating of the 
faculties; and, secondarily, to future engagements. 
Thus the basis of the superstructure will be formed 
of the right material, and will be broad and per- 
manent; not that this strenuous training of the 
faculties can be utterly apart from the acquirement 
of thought with which they are ultimately to be 
replenished. 

That, however, is to be the prominent aim, and 
this the incidental result. Because the tie by which 
the one is drawn after the other is occult, it is not 
unreal; the mightiest forces in nature are buried 
in concealment, and operate unseen. When w^ere 
vigor of purpose, accuracy of discrimination, and 
conclusiveness of reasoning not preceded by thor- 
oughly elaborating discipline? Those no less di- 
rectly look back to this than this looked forward 
to those. The indirectness of the bearings of this 
discipline on a future profession can be no disproof 
of its importance. Metaphysics and the exact sci- 
ences may seem to be as little related to either of 
the learned professions as the romping of childhood 
and the sports of youth are to a robust manhood; 
but the distance of time at which these rise up into 
full effect, can never minify their importance or 
sunder their causal relations. As soon mav you 



228 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

disrupt the chain of nature as prevent tlie rich- 
ness of the remuneration being proportionate to the 
thoroughness of the discipline. 

What, then, are some of the means of attaining 
this discipline ? One of these witli which we can 
never dispense is unremitting attention, x^ttention 
is the power by which one steadily follows out the 
same train of thought. Its strength is measured 
by the extent to wdiich this is continued. This 
intellectual effort, which is painful at the outset, 
becomes facile by continuance. When the will by 
an arduous exertion first attempts undivided appli- 
cation, the mind is continually perplexed by the 
glimmer of intrusive and distracting thoughts, 
which precludes the desired object from being 
placed in the full clearness of undivided light. 
This occurs only when the new object becomes 
fused into an integral part of the system of our 
previous knowledge, and of our established asso- 
ciations of thoughts and desires. 

This involves habit, whose incipiency is by com- 
pulsion, but whose every successive step is taken 
with greater ease. Thus the whole system of 
thought harmonizes with our pursuit, and the 
whole mind lives only in the trains of thought 
to which it has devoted its enero-ies. Then that 

o 

pleasure which is the reflex of unforced and un- 
impeded energy attends the most vigorous thought. 
In this state the mind stamps excellencies on all 
its processes. The most complicated demonstrations 



MENTAL CULTURE. 229 

made by the master minds of La Place and La 
Grange are all made up of immediate inferences, 
the first of which may be grasped by the feeblest 
intellect. ISTo greater exertion of the intellect is 
I'equisite to make a thousand such efforts than to 
make one. 

The ISTewtonian mind can connect inferences 
through the whole series to the determinate end ; 
the common mind makes the successive inferences, 
but soon falters and lets fall the thread in the be- 
ginning or midway of the series. It was to this 
patient attention that Sir Isaac referred his discov- 
eries. If Plato's account of Socrates be reliable, 
this father of Greek philosophy was peerless in the 
power of attention. '^This philosopher was seen by 
the Athenian army to stand for a whole day and 
night, till the break of the second morning, mo- 
tionless, and with a fixed gaze, showing that he 
was uninterruptedly engrossed with the considera- 
tion of a single subject;" and it is added that 
'' thus Socrates was wont to do when his mind was 
occupied with inquiries in which there were difii- 
culties to be overcome." "He would then forget 
to eat, and drink, and sleep .... till he 
had seen some light on the subject." Whatever 
exaggeration there may be in this narrative, there 
is truth in the principle. Descartes, like Newton, 
arrogated nothing "to the superiority of his intel- 
lect, but attributed all in which he excelled to the 
superiority of his method." 



230 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

Witli great force Helvetiiis lias defined genius as 
being the power of continued attention; and in 
this the most eminent authorities accord. Thus, 
self-abstraction from the inversion of surrounding 
objects is the condition of mental power. This fac- 
ulty has been manifest in all whose names have 
been associated with the progress of intellectual 
science. Hamilton quotes more than a half a dozen 
who in this power of abstract attention were little 
less distinguished than Socrates. It is fitly said 
that "the attention of the intellect is a natural 
prayer by which w^e '"'obtain the enlightenment of 
reason." 

But this power of fastening attention on a chosen 
train of thought is weak just as the pupil tolerates 
in himself the habit of lans^uor or of intermitted 
application. This makes the efi'ort of persistent at- 
tention more difficult to-morrow than to-day. The 
labor of acquiring this habit is painful as external 
circumstances are unpropitious ; it is facile as in- 
ward tranquillity and surrounding silence are deep. 
Let the student, therefore, exclude disturbing causes 
till he has acquired the command of his attention, 
and then let him resolutely brave such causes. 
This mastery of attention will enable you to ob- 
serve another rule in this progressive discipline. I 
allude to the thoroughness of investigation. To 
abandon a subject till clear and precise ideas on it 
are acquired, is fatally to obstruct the course of 
discipline. AVhat can be more fatal to all progress 



MENTAL CULTURE. 231 

than to assume one knows that of which he is only- 
beginning to perceive his ignorance? What can be 
more indispensable to discipline than clearness of 
perception of that which in itself is clear? By this 
alone can a complex subject be so disentangled that 
by the analytic process each part can be taken 
from the others and laid in its own place, till all 
are considered seriatim — then will the maxim be 
found just, '' Divide and conquer." By dismiss- 
ing a subject without having fully scanned it, the 
student not merely remains ignorant of what he 
had attempted to learn, but has strengthened his 
tendency to rest in vague conceptions of all other 
subjects. 

Another canon kindred to this is precision of 
TERMS. All in the least habituated to investiga- 
tion must be aware that the processes of thought 
are by the employment of language. Though 
thought may commence without terms, it can not 
proceed without them. The looseness of language, 
therefore, involves the vagueness of thought. To 
suppose one understands a subject because he is fa- 
miliar with some general terms in which it is often 
stated — though he has never attached one definite 
idea to those terms — is a most common and fatal 
delusion. Loose language may conceal profound 
ignorance, but can do nothing toward dissipating 
that ignorance. We may ever be sure of the exact 
correspondence between the character of language 

and the character of thought. To achieve, there- 

20 



232 LECTURES AND ADBHESSES. 

fore, the mastery of this great instrument of 
thought, deserves the student's highest aspiration. 
Words are plenty enough, and often flow most 
readily from the shallowest brain. We speak, 
therefore, not of the number of words, nor of the 
fluency in uttering them, but of their exact fit- 
ness — words that express not too much or too 
little — words v/hich could give place to no others 
without the loss of precision— words that in the 
same connection have no exact synonyms. 

While the study of philosophy is the discipline 
of the intellect, the study of philology is the indis- 
pensable preparative. Thus, in translating thought 
from one language into another, the mind learns to 
detect the exact import of the two classes of corre- 
sponding terms ; so that no branch of study con- 
tributes so directly to the wealth and precision of 
style as translating the classics. 

Nor is the habit of accurately discriminating be- 
tween tome and false reasoning unimportant to 
mental discipline. The three directions just given 
are indispensable preparatives to the facile observ- 
ance of this canon. The unremitting attention to 
a train of thought till its utmost contents are ap- 
prehended — the precision of thought which secures 
a sifting analysis, and the exactness of language 
corresponding to such thought, prepare the mind 
for a rigid logic. It requires not the profoundest 
art to so commingle the sound with the fallacious, 
as to conceal the sophistry from the unpracticed 



I 



MENTAL CULTURE. 233 

eye. While the analytic habit of the student's 
mind is his security against the sophist, it is his 
only indemnity against the errors of his own con- 
clusions. Nor could he long indulge in inventing 
plausible arguments for the support of error, with- 
out so w^arping his own faculties as to connect 
douht with all truth. This self-perversion is the 
penalty of voluntary misapplication. It issues not 
in mental discipline, but in mental unhingement. 
Of this many of the acute disputants of the seven- 
teenth century are painful illustrations. But by 
cultivating the discriminating faculty the earnest 
student will judge of arguments not by their num- 
ber, but by their weight — he will yield his convic- 
tions to them not as they are plausible, but as their 
steps are consecutive — as every link is seen to draw 
after it the other in the chain. 

It is no less palpable that the false element in 
argument cancels the true, than that the negative 
quantity in the solution of an algebraic problem 
cancels, to its own full amount, the positive. The 
habit of thorough investigation can alone enable 
you to avoid this error and detect it in others. 

The primary signification of the word investi- 
gate — to follow an object by the traces it has left 
in its road to its unknown place — this primary 
meaning is expressive of the caution and persist- 
ency demanded for success. The point at which 
one starts is known — the point he would reach is 
unknown. The distance dividine: them can be free 



234: LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

from peril only as it is traversed by tHe rule of 
logical cause and consequence. Any departure from 
this rule would sunder the everlasting connection 
of thought. If you supply by mere conjecture a 
single link in this eternal chain, you thereby blend 
uncertainty with every possible conclusion, no mat- 
ter how remote from your conclusion or how prox- 
imate to it your premises may lie. It would be a 
grievous delusion to suppose that the habit of dart- 
ing the mind's eye along every link of the argu- 
mentative chain is required only by mathematics or 
metaphysics; there is no department of knowledge 
by which it is not demanded. 

On all possible subjects thoughts are related. To 
make one thought solitary or isolated, would require 
the change of every mental law. Such thought, 
therefore, belongs not to a single mind in the uni- 
verse. These connections of thought are, therefore, 
not to be originated, but are to be discovered by 
you. This is not the beautiful creation of genius, 
but existed prior to created mind. Though the 
connections of thought lie often below the surface, 
they are never out of the subject. The ready per- 
ception of these relations is essential to the power 
of high and rapid generalization. Among the ad- 
vantages of this mental habit is that of meek but 
manly independence. Then the judgment is swayed 
not by authority, but by evidence; not by opinion, 
but by conviction. Then that is embraced as truth, 
not because its votaries are numerous or its advo- 



MENTAL CULTURE. 235 

cates are powerful, but because its evidence is in- 
vincible. In prosecuting this course of discipline, 
the question has doubtless pressed itself upon you, 
''What is the point beyond which you should appeal 
for aid to minds of higher culture than your own?" 
The point at which you should go out of yourself 
for help is not where you first meet with difiiculty, 
but where you find that difiiculty insurmountable. 
Where your utmost exertions are inadequate to 
reach an unattained hight, there help is appro- 
priate. The system under which we exist has so 
related society that those of larger experience shed 
their superior light on the younger, and those of 
higher development vanquish the ignorance of the 
untaught. All our educational institutions recog- 
nize the principle of instruction to whose applica- 
tion to man God himself has condescended. Indo- 
lence alone will rely on that assistance which super- 
sedes one's own exertion. This is both degrading 
and enfeebling, and will place its subject at a hope- 
less distance from scholarship. In concluding this 
discussion, I will merely recall to your attention its 
subordinate topics. 

The first requisition made by mental discipline is 
self-knowledge. Though self is the nearest of ob- 
jects to us, it is the last to command attention. 
Still, this subjective acquaintance is indispensable to 
the right adjustment of the mind to the objective 
sphere. When one has thus measured himself, 
fathoming his own powers, he must concentrate 



236 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

them, pouring the whole stream of thought on the 
ohject he investigates. The facility with which this 
undivided attention is commanded will be gradu- 
ated by the vigor of purpose to attain it, and the 
extent to which it is attained Avill be the measure 
of that precisio-ii of thought with which the mental 
processes will proceed, and those heterogeneous ele- 
ments will be excluded which will otherwise vitiate 
the highest attempts at generalization. 

Kindred to this precision of thought is accuracy 
of language. Such is their relation that each 
alternately depends on the other. As language 
is chiefly the instrument of thought, the accuracy 
of one will measure the precision of the other. 
These distinctives havina; become the habits of the 
stttdent, he will readily determine at what point he 
should seek aid from minds of higher development; 
that, so far as instruction supersedes his own labor, 
it is an obstacle and not a facility to his progress. 
The bestowment of the richest blessings of heaven 
and earth is suspended on labor, and the mind is 
constructed to obtain its best treasure — discipline- 
on the same principle, by the dint of labor. 



XL 
A CHARGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER: 

DELIVERED AT HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF 
THE NORTH-WESTERN UNIVERSITY. 



Reverend Brother,— May I be permitted, in 
the name of the Trustees, to communicate to you 
their conceptions of your duties arising from the 
relations you have just assumed to the University? 

This charge upon which you have now entered is 
a most solemn trust; the magnitude of the duties 
it imposes on you is commensurate with your utmost 
capability. You know that no science has been more 
deeply studied than education. To educate is to un- 
fold the principle of thought which is forever after 
to be self-propagative. It is to discipline the will — 
that executive force, that central principle of char- 
acter; it is to elicit and direct the social and moral 
sensibilities of man's spiritual nature. The assiduity 
and skill demanded for success can be appreciated 
only in the light of this great fact, that your agency 
is only one element of a hundred which acts a part 
in the pupil's education. In spite of the best 

scholastic system for mental discipline, spontaneous 

237 



238 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

development will predominate. Your voice is only 
one of many wliich address him; your most striking 
thoughts can not directly monopolize his attention. 
Not only are domestic government, State legisla- 
tion, early associates the young man's educators, 
but every physical feature of the place he inhab- 
its, every step in the processes of voiceless nature 
around him, every inward association and outward 
correspondence, are his educators. 

These numberless agents of measureless power 
you can not neutrcdize, but you can subsidize. They 
may be permeated by the scholar's spirit and laid 
under large contribution to his single aim. He 
may, like the chemist, bring into harmonious rela- 
tions the heterogeneous substances of nature, and 
make the conflicting influences of life's experiences 
strongly combine to advance scholastic discipline. 
In so reconstructing the student's mental habit that 
he may seize on the general in the particular — that 
he may judge of individual influences in the broader 
light of consecutive thought, you remove from him 
a mental perversity which would be a wall of ada- 
mant to his progress, and secure to yourself a di- 
recting power over him which shall influence all his 
other influences. It is in this indirect manner only 
that the teacher can transfer himself to his pupil 
without, to the slightest extent, impairing his pupil's 
idejititT/. 

I know that you can not be more fully aware 
than you are that the subject on which you are to 



A CHARGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. Z39 

act is an agent — that it is viiiid, not nature — spirit, 
not matter. Tliat you are, therefore, to govern it, 
not as God does the globes of the universe, but as he 
does his worshipers that people them. Still with 
this distinction, clear as light, between force and 
motives, how rarely does it suggest the most effi- 
cient class of motives ! There is not in the universe 
a single agent invested with self-directing power; 
and, no matter how weak, he spurns with all the 
self-importance of Hampden the tyranny which re- 
fuses to recognize it. The educator who employs 
authority instead of allurement, who can not govern 
mind by making it feel that it governs itself, throws 
his charge on the defensive, and creates a resist- 
ance which would be unmatched by a thousand 
times his power. But control of mind loses none 
of its importance by the necessity of its indirect- 
ness. This increases the demand on the skill of the 
operator. 

The responsibility of your position has its meas- 
ure in the minds you shall skillfully form, and in 
all the ages they shall improvingly influence. The 
few thousands who are personally to feel your 
agency make not the circumference of that agency. 
It will stream, like morning light, along every tie 
of society and every ligament that shall bind ages 
together. Till the numbers shall be computed which 
shall be influenced by those on whom you act — till 
the centuries shall be counted which are within the 

grasp of man's history, the aggregate of your agency 

21 



24:0 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

can not be measured. Indeed, the importance of an 
agent's position must be measured rather by the 
kind and degree of his influence than by the extent 
of surface it pervades. Great thoughts, like great 
thinkers, are cogent as they are rare. They can 
never sleep or stagnate. Unlike other forces their 
intensity accumulates as their surface expands. One 
great idea which you shall lodge in some prolific 
mind may work on and on till it shall sweep aside 
whole systems of error, and give character to the 
age. In tracing the history of such thoughts w^e 
find their birthplace at the highest seats of learn- 
ing. There are grouped in bright clusters disci- 
plined minds, whose action on each other is with 
a cogency transcending the power of all visible 
agencies. 

May I also remind you that your present post 
derives special importance frorii its central position. 
Here you are in the midst of these ocean-like prai- 
ries, whose boundless bloom predicts and symbolizes 
their social greatness. No earthly agency can pre- 
vent their becoming the crowded residence of wealth, 
intelligence, and refinement, where society will de- 
velop itself in its highest style — in its noblest type — 
where the representatives of twenty distant nations, 
melted and molded by American mind into one 
homogeneous community, will be susceptible of 
higher polish than ever adorned the paragons of 
Greece. Here, then, you need not wait for a dis- 
tant generation to create a demand for a high order 



A CHARCxE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. 241 

of educators. Such a demand is the offspring of 
that opulence and leisure which will soon be com- 
manded by large classes in this great mysterious 
West. Much that has been the growth of a thou- 
sand years in the Old World, will, in the midst of 
this dramatic scene, be the product of a single age. 
Though we look not for the infant to reach manhood 
in a day, or Nature to become breathless in her 
efforts to keep up with man, we do look for social 
developments peerless in their rapidity as they are 
vast in their scale. An age that can transport our 
persons five hundred miles in a day, and our 
thoughts over the globe swifter than the sound of 
the angel's trumpet can traverse it — such an age 
looks back in vain for a parallel in the past, and 
forward with confidence for higher achievements in 
the future. This great receptacle of life, able to 
feed one-third of all earth's nations, has — beyond 
any other realm — felt the quickening impulse of 
these new-born agencies. 

Amid these strange combinations of time, and 
place, and forces, you are called to a central 
agency — to act a momentous part — to prepare an 
agency which will multiply yourself into a number 
equal to many of the posts to be supplied in all the 
learned professions. Hence the Board have left 
large scope in the system of this University, to 
bring its operations into conformity to the varying 
demands which shall arise. They have wisely re- 
frained from casting it into that iron mold by which 



242 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

a European university is placed beyond the power 
of change, in the midst of the growing demands of 
modern ages. Indeed, we have never had in the 
New World a university in the European sense of 
that word. Our college system is exceedingly un- 
like the university systems of England, Scotland, 
and Germany. Many never enter these universi- 
ties till they have passed through a more thorough 
course — in such schools as those at Westminster 
and Winchester — than our whole system, prepara- 
tory, collegiate, and professional, requires. The uni- 
versities of Scotland are great professional schools ; 
they have not unfrequently been honored by brill- 
iant discoveries. The lectures of their accom- 
plished professors have extended the boundaries of 
scientific truth. Those of Germany are still more 
unlike our collegiate system. This will scarcely 
bear a favorable comparison to the German Gym- 
nasia. From the complete classical training of 
these high schools the well-drilled student passes to 
the university to master some special department, 
aided by rich libraries and eminent lecturers. 
Our pilgrim fathers aimed at imitating these great 
institutions of the Old World, only under marked 
modifications. In attempting to combine the clas- 
sics of Oxford with the mathematics of Cambridge, 
they not only abandoned every monastic feature of 
both, but retained only the strictly-disciplinary part 
of either. They aimicd only at the realization of 
that central idea of a public education; namely, a 



A CHAIIGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. 243 

systematical development of man's faculties which 
best adapts him to the utmost activities of life, and 
fits him for life's close. To this great idea their 
successors have ever clung with exhaustless te- 
nacity. 

The system, then, according to which you are 
expected to administer, is a wise eclecticism, free 
born as the millions it is appointed to bless — op- 
pressed neither by the bondage of the Church or 
the despotism of the State. This susceptibility of 
improving change is scarcely dispensable in human 
society, which is constructed to be ever exceeding 
its former self. It can never be parted with on 
this new theater of social development. Here, 
where the race is commencing its history anew, all 
institutions must be constructed for correspondent 
modification. We derive this conclusion alike from 
the reason of the thing and from the practical wis- 
dom of the past. 

The two oldest institutions on our continent are 
no more now what they were in their incipiency, 
than the infant of yesterday is the man of fifty. 
Had not this elasticity of their constitution ad- 
mitted of this indefinite progress, the advances of 
society would have been the oblivion of Cambridge 
and Yale. But the age and place show this state- 
ment to be many times more forcible in its appli- 
cation to this University. Were the physical or 
intellectual universe wanting adaptation to its ends, 
this unfitness would impugn the wisdom of its Au- 



244 LECTURES AXD ADDRESSES. 

tlior — all pretension to perfection would vanish. 
All the cardinal social differences between the two 
continents should be recognized in their two educa- 
tional systems. Ours has evinced its cogency in 
the admirable character of its fruit. Our statesmen, 
diplomatists, jurists, barristers, physicians, theolo- 
gians, and other literati, have excelled in almost 
every arena of intellectual exertion. 

This institution, whose destiny is now placed in 
your hands, must, at present, occupy a middle posi- 
tion between a preparatory seminary and a profes- 
sional school. It must now open its doors alike to 
prepared youth from the princely mansion and 
from the frontier cabin. It must now and ever be 
in communion with the living, acting world. 

But its guardians look to your skill and energy 
for the elevation of its position to correspond with 
the rising educational demands of the West. They 
hope to admit to its halls, before ages shall elapse, 
minds disciplined, and enriched, and invigorated, to 
grapple with the great problems of their age, to 
cultivate the higher scientific branches, and even to 
push their researches into the unexplored regions 
of general truth. Indeed, the inward life of the 
University must cease to glow the instant a higher 
point of attainment should fade from the field of 
its vision. 

A numerous and select library, an expensive and 
various apparatus, a cabinet from the various fields 
of natural specimens, halls thronged with students, 



A CHAKGE TO EEV. DK. FOSTER. 245 

and ringing witli lectures, may be so many elements 
of power in the character of this University. But 
the aggregate of merely these can never elevate it 
above tame mediocrity; the light emanating, the 
fire radiating from its living soul — the President, the 
Faculty — are to kindle its glorious future. 

But the prospective has its preparative in the 
present. The problem now for practical solution is 
this: How shall the faculties of each student be in 
the highest degree developed, enriched, and invigor- 
ated? Not by leaving each to the guidance of his 
own inclination. This is safe only after uniform 
development of the faculties has been secured by 
thorough drilling. As the aim of our college course 
is the symmetrical culture of all the powers, and as 
the mental constitution is in all substantially the 
same, the general law of college culture should be 
correspondingly uniform. Till this common culture 
be completed it should be unyielding as fate. But 
this having been consummated, then when the stu- 
dent seeks professional attainments, let each freely 
consult his own professional aptitude. We know 
that education begins, and are equally aware that it 
never ends. Of this we are assured by the mind's 
own mysterious powers, whose immortal designation 
is GROWTH. It is midway of his career that the 
pupil is placed in your plastic hand; not at its 
beginning, for that is with his first breath; not at 
its maturity, for ere that long ages must intervene. 
Charmed as is every educated mind in surveying 



246 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

the finislied creation, it would have been much 
more thrilled in witnessing its rising process. This 
greater pleasure will be yours in seeing the mental 
fabric rise and successively assuming its appurten- 
ances. Indeed, yourself will be the architect, its 
furniture will be yours transferred, and you will 
accompany it through every step up to the soul's 
mighty manhood. As the mind's food is truth, and 
will continue to be through the eternity of its mys- 
terious life, in its disciplinary process it should ally 
itself to the deepest and broadest principles within 
the human sphere. Though nature is all written 
over with truth, yet in its highest forms it, must be 
sought beneath the surface. Tireless attention is, 
therefore, the condition of ultimate attainment. A 
thousand wishes for wisdom will perish before the 
threshold is reached. Proximity to its source is not 
the attainment of the treasure. It must be sought 
with agony, analyzed siftingly, and then digested 
thoroughly. 

Though your work for a period will chiefly consist 
in placing the pupil at the avenues to knowledge 
through which he can pass to its broadest fields — to 
the microscopic world of analyzed thought and to 
the telescopic world of far-reaching principle — it 
will not long be so restricted. You will soon ac- 
company him in his explorations in both these broad 
fields. It is not the cramming, but the disciplining 
process which appertains to the incipiency of the 
scholar's course, and this part of the course looks 



A CHARGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. 247 

forward to those higher functions of the faculties 
which will call into requisition the clearest concep- 
tions, the most exact judgments, and the highest 
generalization. These maturer exercises must ever 
be preceded by what we have designated as a germ- 
inant education. In harmony with this view, will 
you allow me to intimate the Board's anticipation 
of your accordance with the long-established colle- 
giate course. By this I of course mean the clas- 
sical, mathematical, and scientifical departments — 
excluding the professional branches. The mutual 
relations of those college branches in this order are 
too palpable to require protracted discussion. 

Language, you know, is the ''matrix" of thought 
in the student's own mind no less than the instru- 
ment of transferring it to other minds. In the 
classic languages there is an inherent tendency to 
intellectual culture. That delicate perception, nice 
anpjysis, that incessant collocation of words, that 
exact discriminating between apparent synonyms, 
whet the mind into a quick, unerring insight into 
the nice and flying shades of variety in thought 
and speech. That class of writers, having been 
masters of the subtilest elements of thought, have 
furnished a system of symbols for communicating it 
entirely peerless. The reason is the same why the 
amateur visits the ancient seats of the fine arts to 
commune with their immortal masters through their 
matchless productions ; for the same reason the 
scholar repairs to the classic page, finding the 



248 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

freshness and simplicity of nature combined with an 
art concealed beneath its own exquisite perfection. 
Thus does the mind, schooled to delight in order, 
fitness, and congruity, recoil with intense emotions 
from all the opposites. If language in general can 
alone span the chasm separating between the mind 
and consecutive knowledge, how vitally connected 
with these most finished lanQ^ua2;e3 must be the 
accuracy of thought ! 

Irrespective of that old and dark question lying 
between realism and nominalism, it may be confi- 
dently affirmed that there is no form of study which 
more fully brings all the faculties into united eff'ort, 
nor any other instrument so related to all kinds of 
mental service. Intimacy with these perfect sym- 
bols of thought is a fit preparative to mathematics. 
This, conducting the mind through a process of 
severe reasoning, enables it to cling to the forms 
of abstract truth, endowing it with a keenness, and 
a quickness, and a vigor not otherwise attainable. 
AVithout this communion with abstract thousrht the 

o 

mind can scarcely escape the tyranny of vagrant 
habits by the power of concentrated attention, and 
can take hold of no series of thought with a com- 
prehensive grasp. What is foreign will obtrude and 
will fix itself inexorably at the single point one 
would examine. These two branches, including the 
concrete sciences, have, as you know, since the re- 
vival of letters, been at the foundation of a liberal 
education. "When Ave rem_ember over how broad 



A CHARGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. 249 

and various fields these branches extend — that they 
embrace the physical, the metaphysical, the social, 
the historical, and the like — we can not overvalue 
the abstract underlying principle. From these in- 
ward vital elements of college training external 
discipline should never be apart. This is sum- 
marily called institutional order, generating in the 
student-habits of self-control, rigid punctuality, and 
gentlemanly bearing. Where these are wanting, 
harmony between the governed and the governing 
is wa.nting — opposite aims, conflicting interests, dis- 
tracting feuds — and may become ruinous as volcanic 
agency. 

To preserve an affectionate harmony among all 
concerned, the history of colleges, you are aware, 
has pronounced difficult. But the difiiculty, we 
know, is not insuperable, as the thing has been 
achieved. Few public blessings remain long un- 
changed by our inw-ard perverting tendencies. Our 
free institutions, both the parent an 1 o ^spring of 
cultivated society, are made the occasion of insub- 
ordination; while the oldest despotism of Oriental 
realms incidentally issue in opposite results. No 
observer, passing from those early seats of our race 
in the East toward the Western empires of younger 
nations, will fail to be struck at every stage with 
the wasting reverence for parents and teachers, and 
with the dying regard for all authority. The oc- 
casion forbids us to trace the causes and cure of 
this desolating evil; but I can not forbear naming 



250 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

felt Christianity as the neutralizing agent of all evil. 
This has negotiated peace between two worlds, and 
can certainly preserve amity in a college fraternity; 
not by extinguishing passion, but by kindling it 
into a glow of sympathy which forms the social 
cement. There is one tendency in the classical 
course which demands such a neutralizing influ- 
ence to control it : I allude to the heathenizing 
influence breathed through all pagan literature. 
Though we can never dispense with those peer- 
less modes and symbols of thought till a far higher 
culture shall polish modern literature, yet against 
the subtile poison of pagan ethics and polytheism 
we must interpose the shield of vital Christianity. 
The classic field can be appropriately surveyed only 
from a Christian stand-point. 

Kindred to this thought, may I be permitted, 
in conclusion, to suggest one more? It is the 
historic fact that the Church, through all the ages 
of her history, has been the grand educator of the 
race. This has been so not merely because Chris- 
tianity is the grand quickener of the intellect, and 
would legitimately fill all minds with light, but be- 
cause it alone can impart the ethical element; and, 
apart from this element, the highest faculty must 
remain uneducated. The substratum of heathen 
education was polytheism — that of Christian edu- 
cation is Christian theisin. The fierceness of the 
antagonism is intrinsic and historical. The former 
was the last obstacle to yield before the triumphant 



A CHARGE TO REV. DR. FOSTER. 251 

sway of the new religion. Long did it resist the 
higher civilization introduced by its Christian an- 
tagonist. To be diffusive of moral light through 
intellectual truth, is innate to that system whose 
source was dying love. It was, therefore, not only 
the wisdom of the Church, but its necessity, to 
educate the race. 

The keys just delivered into your hands are a 
symbol of power over mind committed to your 
trust. This grave charge the Board have solemnly 
confided to your agency for purposes of the highest 
discipline. It is mind, without which all the lights 
in the universe were kindled in vain — mind, for 
which alone Cod said let there be suns, and moons, 
and stars to throw their radiancy through all the 
chambers of nature. It is for the culture of these 
agents, the feeblest of which may yet expand be- 
yond the great field in which power creative has 
yet energized — may become susceptible of intenser 
bliss than now rings from all the harps on high. 
This wondrous image of the uncreated mind, no 
less expansive than deathless, is now, placed in 
your custody to mold, and polish, and expand, and 
replenish, and thereby to fix for its incomprehens- 
ive destiny in those far-off ages which Jehovah's 
mind alone pervades. Such, then, is young mind, 
that every chord within it which your fingers shall 
touch may sound in concert with the highest har- 
monies of the universe. 



XII. 
A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS: 

DELIVERED TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE NORTH- 
WESTERN UNIVERSITY FOR 1862. 



"Remember this and show yourselves men." — Isaiah xlvi, 8. 

This address is not made to our manhood in the 
sense of brute courage, or of lofty martial bearing, 
or in the sense of any accidental distinction — it is 
an appeal made to our noblest powers for their le- 
gitimate application. The subject does not demand 
attention to man as a wondrous physical organism, 
involving all the combined excellences of every pre- 
ceding creature which has ever lived, but it re- 
quires attention to man as a link in the great chain 
of the intellectual universe — as an agent in the 
endless train of moral actors — as having a part to 
perform in executing the scheme of Providence, and 
in working out the problem of redemption — as a 
retrospective being mysteriously related to the past, 
with a view to a preparation for the pregnant fu- 
ture. Guided by these principles in this discussion, 
I shall invite attention to a manly reference to the 

past — to a manly decision of character — to a manly 

253 



254 LECTUEE3 AXD ADDEESSES. 

estimate of true greatness — to a manly apprecia- 
tion of our abiding relations to the universe. 

The general reference of the subject is irrespect- 
ive of age; its particular application is to young 
men. That youth is rash, is an immemorial assump- 
tion. So far as real it is resolvable into the double 
cause of defective experience and ardor of constitu- 
tion. Improvement of the former will give value 
to the latter. The attainment of this may be made 
in the lesson of history, and in the experience of re- 
ligion. History is not merely '^ the counselor of 
kings/' but the instructor of humanity, especially 
of yoi'thful humanity, in life's perilous morning, 
when our allotment is new, almost as if we had 
last night just entered upon its strange experiences. 
Experience, which can not then be personal, can 
here be had by proxy. The latest age is appointed 
to draw upon departed ages — priority to live for 
posterity. Each age should be wise in proportion 
to the number of generations which have preceded 
it. When personal experience comes to the individ- 
ual youth has fled, and with it goes the finest ele- 
ment of manhood — noble do.ring. But when the 
experience of the past cooperates with the generous 
ardor of youth, the crowning glory of wisdom can 
be ftilly manifest. Such a strenuous actor, though 
young in years, is old in communion with matured 
historic manhood. 

The demands and liabilities of life can no other- 
wise be known in its earlier stages, or the condi- 



A BACCALAUKEATE ADDRESS. 255 

tions ascertained on which life can be made a suc- 
cess. Every youthful mind should throw itself 
open to the conviction that it has a destiny to ful- 
fill, and that its failure will so far frustrate God's 
providence. His appointed task may be to educate 
his cotemporaries by transferring to their minds 
the wealth and habits of his own ; or to extend civ- 
ilization by advancing the humanitarian institu- 
tions, making them more eminently the glory of 
the age ; or to become an ornament of one of the 
learned professions, where the honor shall be recip- 
rocal to the calling and the incumbent — -where, act- 
ing on an eminence, he may bless a larger portion 
of his race. There is not one agent within the cir- 
cle of the sun who is not appointed to be a co- 
worker with God's providence. Having this Divine 
coadjutor, and millions of fellow-laborers, how can he 
enter, untaught by the past, on this great theater? 
To begin life's action is to step on holy ground — it 
has a commencement, but no termination. On such 
an unending career the full-orbed light of the past 
should shine. The monitory voice of ages ringing 
in your ears tells you not precipitately, not with a 
rush, but deliberately, this should be done. Every 
lesson you have mastered in ethics, in philosophy, 
and in all kindred branches, reiterates this moni- 
tion. This instruction, uttered by the voices of the 
dead and the distant, is to be embodied in practical 
wisdom, and thus contribute to that sublime end 

of all knowledge — right action. The comparative 

22 



256 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

guilt of inaction and of wrong action may well be 
left to the casuist, but tliat either is a prevention 
of man's godlike powers is no question. 

Of all the young man's solicitudes none is deeper 
than ^'hoAV he shall make life a success." If the 
solution be sought in chance or in destiny, it will 
be sought in vain; '^the shade will ever elude the 
grasp." It can be found only in an earnest cooper- 
ation with the providence of God. Virtuous effort 
and Divine reward are among the harmonies of the 
universe. This is among those great maxims which 
contain the essence of all practical wisdom, and 
which can not be ignored without the m^ost fatal 
results. This divine philosophy takes root in Chris- 
tian theology, and is the only unblundering guide 
through the human pilgrimage. The rashness is 
stupendous which w^ould cut off the present from 
the past. This severance w^ould keep the race for- 
ever in its cradle; it w^ould doom man to that 
infancy which would preclude all advancement; it 
would preclude prior generations from bequeathing 
to us the wealth of their experience; it w^ould 
place at an unapproachable distance the intellectual 
millennium of the race, no less than the spiritual 
millennium of God; it would fix the track of every 
generation in the same beaten path trod by all hu- 
man feet. In fine, it would establish a conclusion 
subversive of a thousand notorious facts. 

"Was there ever a more perilous maxim than that 
the knowledge of life and character is valueless 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 257 

only as gained by experience? It deridingly con- 
tradicts the great moral principle divinely pro- 
claimed, ''Train up a child in the way he should 
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." 
This is either sweepingly true as a principle, or 
there is an end to human progress, and no signifi- 
cancy in the growing capabilities stamped on our 
powers — then, after the flight of a hundred ages, 
'^ In statu quo'' would be the dark inscription on 
the allotment of man. Every individual would 
drudge through the same experimental process — 
each would learn wisdom from adversity, caution 
from imprudence, temperance from excess, industry 
from want, and all the virtues from the blighting 
experience of their opposite vices. The contraction 
of life, from almost a thousand years to less than a 
century, was to be compensated by appropriating 
ancestral experience. Where this is ignored each 
terminates life ere it can be well begun; as though 
he were in the morning of time, in the cradle of 
the race, and had heard the angelic shout at the 
rise of creation — as though he had nothing human 
to retrospect and every thing human to learn. To 
such the huge volume of six thousand years is a 
sealed book, and the mystic echo of oracular voices 
dies in the distance unheard. 

Why should not the mighty utterances of the 
dead, sounding from the ancient hights of time, be 
heeded by posterity as angel messages ? Though it 
be not given to us, as to some nobler nature, to 



258 LFX'TUEES AXD ADDEESSES. 

view from tlie summit of the universe tlie great ex- 
periment of the race in ?J1 its bearings on the whole 
family of God: yet may we learn our future selves 
in the light emanating from the development of our 
predecessors. 

2. Our next direction is to study the laivs of our 
ovj'/i heing. The living can learn the lessons of the 
dead only as they learn themselves. The laws of 
one's own nature are to him the revelation of God: 
they should, therefore, be read and scrutinized with 
the veneration Avhich that sentence from heaven 
elicited — r>co->'}'. J-aDT'/> — which glowed in letters of 
gold on the Grecian temple. In the light that dis- 
closes these mystic powers every moral act is seen 
to have a twofold character and importance. It is 
useful or injurious as are its conseqicences ; vicious 
or virtuous as are its raotives. By a special law of 
our being the repetition of action generates a mys- 
terious sway over our faculties. This power, which 
is so gained or lost, invests every repeated act with 
an importance not its own. It creates those perma- 
nent characteristics which are ever removing the 
agent further from the reach of change. 

This law alike controls the physical, intellectual, 
and moral man. A thousand examples prove the 
stupendous energy with which intellect is thus in- 
vested. Attention, memory, judgment illustrate 
this law in the strength they derive from use. iSTor 
is the power of moral habit less amazing. Every 
act of vice is another link in that adamantine chain 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 259 

doomed to bind the soul in the dungeon of spirits. 
Every deed of piety is an upward step toward the 
lofty seats of glorified humanity. The occultness 
with which this principle of habit operates connects 
the wonderful fact with not a shadow of doubt. 
Those upright principles and noble sentiments, mak- 
ing the elements of good character, can no other- 
wise acquire their strength. These, having thus 
acquired maturity, become the fountain of those 
mighty thoughts, noble impulses, generous sympa- 
thies, and lofty aspirations, which have distinguished 
the Howards, the Wilberforces, and the other ana^el- 
men of the race. In such the true and the good 
become so deeply seated as to be the only idol of 
the soul's veneration. What are merely intellectual 
endowments compared to this moral ascent toward 
the center of all greatness and perfection? "What 
is the Aristotelian skill in dialectics, the Homeric 
pomp of poetry, the Ciceronian power of eloquence, 
and the Baconian breadth in all philosophy? What 
are all these — though the envy of ages — compared 
to that confirmed goodness to which all worlds are 
appointed to minister? 

Nor should it ever escape you, young gentlemen, 
that the power of evil habit is not less cogent. It 
tends to the same gigantic growth in its downward 
workings. Insinuating itself in the moral constitu- 
tion, it becomes a part of the very elements of be- 
ing. Soon it reaches that fearful maturity in which 
its tyrant power derides the resistance of will, and 



260 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

thus masters that inward energy to which our last 
appeal is made. Often has the voice of wisdom 
warned you against corrupt prints and vicious asso- 
ciates; but why should it not, in deeper tones, pre- 
monish you against the more insidious, silent, bosom 
foes? There, in the profound secrecy of the heart, 
where impure thoughts are voluntarily introduced 
or deliberately indulged, is at work a more malig- 
nant poison than the brothel ever vomited on soci- 
ety! These imminently peril the whole future of 
the agent. Just as when the mind moves in the 
bright circles of truth, justice, purity, and benig- 
nity, its legitimate manifestations are godlike; so, 
when it works in the dark, secretly communing 
with the foul and the base, it naturally embodies 
these monsters in practical life. Great virtues, like 
great crimes, flow from triumphant habit contracted 
in the viewless chambers of the soul. There, un- 
seen by all eyes but the eye of consciousness and of 
God, the virtue is achieved or the vice perpetrated, 
long before it bursts into visible execution. 

When moral power is thus accumulated, it is 
never wanting scope for action; it waits not for a 
great crisis, but ever finds the harvest ripe for the 
sickle; it works on through sunshine and storm — 
for injured innocence and oppressed humanity — for 
down-trodden truth and imperiled patriotism. In 
this sharpened state of the moral powers, the mind 
recognizes three grand volumes, thus labeled, in 
letters of light, '^ God's works." One of these is 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 261 

the great objective system entitled Nature; the 
other is the subjective system called "Mind/' 
and the third, the living oracles named "Scrip- 
ture.'' To the mind, in this state, the oneness of 
authorship is obtrusively palpable; it is seen in the 
light of self-evidence. The laws of thought and the 
truths of Revelation can not be out of harmony. 
The one is God's book without us; the other is his 
revelation within us. The correspondence of the 
one to the other shows them inseparable as the 
incident and reflected rays. Thus by knowing one's 
self he perceives all nature an ocean of elemental 
thought, and all revelation a still higher disclosure 
of the same mighty intellect. 

I remark that another element of manliness is 
DECISION of character. This involves an indisso- 
luble connection between the conclusions of the 
judgment and the decisions of the will. The order 
in this process is patience in inquiry, accuracy in 
knowing, reliance on judgment, and vigor of pur- 
pose. Legitimately does this changeless reason fol- 
low a transparent judgment, based on precision of 
thought, preceded by sifting investigation. That 
very caution which generates timidity in the empty 
mind, inspires courage in the richly-replenished 
mind. The one, like the midnight traveler, not 
knowing the dangers of his way, advances with 
hesitancy ; the other, with noonday light on his 
path, fearlessly advances. The one is attended by 
timidity and delay; the other, by confidence and 



262 LECTUEES AXB ADDRESSES. 

speed. The influence of certainty on confidence ia 
among our most common experiences. When did 
the mathematician ever v\'ant confidence in the most 
distant conclusion of his protracted process? 

In its measure, similar certitude attends all moral 
and practical truth Avhen previous inquiry has given 
transparency to all its relations. All the lines of 
light meeting on the point in question, the connec- 
tion becomes indissoluble between the conclusions 
of the understanding and the decisions of the will. 
Then, if passion kindles, it only becomies a glowing 
atmosphere which invests the judgment, and not a 
tyrant to enslave it ; it is the master and not the 
victim of the most glowing emotions. The merest 
glance at the phenomena of the will discloses the 
connection between (iesire, judgment, and confidence, 
showing that they never fail to precede volition, 
and that the strength of this is the measure of the 
vigor of them. Power was never found alone in 
the universe ; stripped of- its accompaniments, it 
-would be the most fearful object that could alarm 
responsible beings. It is the mantle of virtue 
flowung gracefully over the giant's shoulders which 
blends the feeling of security wuth the idea of 
grandeur. 

Decision of character regards both the subjective 
and objective spheres of action. The former is 
legitimately the ground of the latter. He who 
conquers himself, vanquishing his passions, his ap- 
petites, and his selfishness, is the divinely-recog- 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 263 

nized liero — ^'Eulirig 'his spirit, lie is better than 
lie who taketh a city." Decision of character is, 
therefore, a virtue which no where fails to have 
ample scope. Not only in every one of the learned 
professions, at every post of official trust, but in 
the humblest walks of private life — in the deep 
recesses of our own mysterious nature — it can 
mightily operate. Where great truth has been 
known — its strength contemplated in its majesty 
and experienced in its power — this characteristic 
has come forth in its noblest form. Look at 
that mighty Jew, Saul of Tarsus, following truth 
through flood and flame! At first the hated sect 
melts away before the fiery breath of his nostrils 
as the snow from Lebanon before the simoom of 
the desert; but no sooner does a beam from heaven 
fall on his dark spirit than he follows its certain 
light, with a sublime devotion with which the 
whole age glowed. At once and forever he propa- 
gates the faith he has destroyed; all other interests 
relinquish their hold on this wonderful man. The 
temples of Diana, Jupiter Olympius, the Parthenon, 
with all their enchanting associations, all the clas- 
sical grandeur, the accumulation of ages, were for- 
gotten toys in competition with Jesus of Nazareth. 
Grasp, I beseech you, young men, the substance 
of these hints on decision of character — this most 
manly trait in a symmetrical mind. Their recapitu- 
lation may give them a stronger hold on memory: 
1. E-evert, then, to the radical importance of ac- 



264 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

curate knowledge to correct judgments — to the 
ruin of mental decision effected by vague thinking. 
2. Eeflect, also, that perfection of knowledge is an 
advance on accuracy of knowledge. While accu- 
racy regards a single branch of a complex subject, 
perfection embraces all its branches — that embracing 
each, and this comprehending all — so that every one 
is known in its altitude, longitude, and latitude, 
and the whole in its contents, properties, and rela- 
tions. 3. But it must not escape us that these 
degrees of knowledge can never extend to all sub- 
jects. This fact, which nothing could conceal, has 
originated a division of labor, and repudiated all 
universality of genius. Indeed, as genius is a par- 
ticular adaptation, it embodies a contradiction to 
suppose it universal. This does not preclude that 
general knowledge of the arts and sciences, the in- 
dispensable bond of unity in the learned world. 
Beyond this each must restrict himself to one field, 
and there make clean work. This mastery of all 
the principles of one's profession leads him with a 
firm step to the highest public confidence. 4. To 
do this investigation must ever precede delibera- 
tion. Judgment is not the antecedent but the 
sequent of examination. This canon enhances the 
importance of the next; namely, 5. Desire must 
never outstrip the movements of investigation, de- 
liberation, and judgment. Desire kindles into pas- 
sion the moment it treads on the heels of these 
calmer movements of i\\e. soul; but otherwise it 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS. 265 

will quicken these, and will chain the end to the 
final volition in the union of an unconquerable 
decision. 6. The final thought turns on the object 
of desire. The character of the object is not the 
test of immediate success; the basest object is often 
attainable, but then success is ruin; but the object 
of desire being noble bears investigation, and those 
other mental steps preparatory to reverseless de- 
cision. 

May I next direct your attention to a manly es- 
timate of true greatness ? It is essentially com- 
posed of the two elements, power and goodness. 
That goodness is an indispensable element of great- 
ness appears from the mind's own moral structure. 
The incipient conviction of this spontaneously 
arises, and it becomes deeper and stronger as one 
perceives that he possesses his powers fully only in 
the consciousness of moral rectitude. The allega- 
tion which often meets us, that ambition dares 
greater perils than patriotism, that avarice endures 
severer sufferings than benevolence, and that su- 
perstition makes longer pilgrimages than piety — 
that is, that there are other forces in our nature 
stronger than goodness — can not be true. But how 
monstrous the conclusion that a human spirit is 
weaker when allied to God its father, than when 
in the thraldom of debasing passion ! The reverse 
is authenticated by all history. Let that determine 
what has been wrought by the activities of selfish- 
ness compared to the deeds of toil, peril, and endur- 



266 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

ance achieved by Christian philanthropy. Trace 
the angel path of Howard, whose track led him 
through the darkest dungeons of Europe, to miti- 
gate the prison horrors of confined sufferers. Look 
at the Moravian missionaries, rending every kin- 
dred endearment, and directing their steps to the 
Wintry region of Greenland, to mitigate the horrors 
of paganism, and assuage, by the light of the Word, 
the long night of ages! There they toil from age 
to age, with no pleasure but that of doing good — 
no reward but at the resurrection of the just. 
Compare to them the daring sons of ambition, 
whose scorching light, like the meteor's glare, 
flashes on the eye of the world and expires. 

3. Another mode in which goodness contributes 
to 'greatness is by imparting self-conteol. The 
scepter swayed over one's self is the most potent 
ever grasped by the hand of power. It is a divine 
utterance, ''He that ruleth his spirit is better than 
he that taketh a city." He masters a resistance 
arising from the mysterious recesses of his own 
spirit; he vanquishes forces which defy the might- 
iest physical power. His antagonists are those 
downward tendencies which make a part of himself; 
each of which can be mastered only by a new ap- 
plication of skill. These forces acknowledge no di- 
rect control of the will; they set at naught that 
great agency which wields all power. They burst 
from the restraints of the will like the demoniacs 
which rended the fetters that bound them. The 



A BACCALAUEEATE ADDRESS. 267 

subjective becomes the objective; the controller and 
the controlled are identical. Who can measure the 
difficulty of acquiring this strange sovereignty? — 
of hushing to calmness the wildest passions, and 
making harmless as light the most fiery emotions? 
Mere rigor of purpose can no more accomplish this 
than it can make the raging ocean waveless, or the 
angry heavens stormless. 

Of all earth's conquerors, then, he must be the 
most potent who has the secret of self-control. Let 
memory run back over the chain of ages, and recall 
instances enough of mighty minds to represent the 
whole class. Let it select Caesar, who ruled the 
nation that ruled the world; Alexander, who wept 
that there was not a second globe over which to 
lead his invincible phalanx; Napoleon, at whose 
lightning approach all Europe shuddered — these 
were among the giants of the race whose monu- 
ments ages will not crumble. But had they mas- 
tered themselves as they controlled their armies, 
vastly other than it was would have been their 
fate — the Senate-house would never have been 
stained by the blood of murdered Caesar; a fit of 
drunkenness would never have been the death-bed 
of the world's conqueror; a lonely rock in the 
midst of the ocean would never have been the 
prison-house of the Emperor. Had they acquired 
what goodness alone can impart, their respective 
ages would have transmitted different histories to 
posterity. This mighty element of greatness en- 



268 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

ables a man to have himself in his own power; to 
lay his controlling hand on his spirit when it 
flashes and glows in the burning furnace of tempta- 
tion. This is a triumph which would have secured 
the archangel, fallen, upon his throne of light. It 
is the triumph of reason over passion, over appetite, 
over the buffetings and blandishments of society, 
and over the dark agency that rules the midnight 
of demons. Apart from this attribute of goodness, 
how could true greatness exist, even on the throne 
of the Eternal Sovereign ? 

4. The vital connection of the one with the other 
is exhibited in the elevating power of goodness 
upon men in the lower walks of private life. The 
history of facts must have superseded the philoso- 
phy of the process. We demand, with confidence, 
where is there a lofty sphere of social trust to 
which goodness has not raised citizens of this class? 
Franklin was the son of a soap-boiler ; the elder 
Adams's father was a farmer; Jay's ancestors 
were merchants ; Pvittenhouse was a clock-maker ; 
"Washington a practical surveyor. These, which 
are but scattered specimens of numerous instances 
illustrative of the principle, emerged from humble 
walks and pious families, a.nd will forever be monu- 
mental of the elevating power of goodness. The 
history of other lands and ages is not less replete 
with the workings of this same principle. 

We can not advert to the accom^paniments of 
gODdness, to the sterling integrity, the tireless dili- 



A BACCALAUREATE ADDEESS. 269 

gence, the fervid piety which it secures, without 
finding it a passport to elevated position. How this 
principle operates in such a position can not be un- 
known to history. It there develops in schemes of 
improvement, in salutary legislation, and in broad 
philanthropy, silently rebuking grasping selfishness 
and official corruption. Like a star in the polar 
heavens, it can never cease to shed its beams on the 
pathway of coming generations; it can never fail 
to diminish the tide of corruption which so darkly 
rolls over public station. Like its emblem the sun, 
holding its family of worlds in their pathway of air, 
clothing them with life, and bloom, and beauty, it 
so conserves and adorns the high places of power. 

4. But as an element of greatness goodness is no 
where more conspicuous than in oratory. That in- 
tellectual power is essential to eloquence is never 
questioned, but that it derives its greatest energy 
from goodness we maintain. How can the heart be 
inured to unworthy occupations without becoming 
assimilated to its employment? — without thus be- 
coming a weight to depress the intellect ? No 
passion triumphs without contracting the mind's 
sphere, and obscuring its vision. But goodness is 
the quickener of the intellect, stimulating its active 
researches and powerful combinations. The glow 
of his heart who walks with God kindles his intel- 
lect; it expands and fructifies the mind like the 
sun on the face of vegetable nature. The warmth 
of the heart expands the powers of the intellect. 



270 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

How can tlie heart ascend to God witliout carrying 
witli it the intellect ? Upon no other track of 
thought open such scenes of boundless wisdom. 
The enthusiasm of the heart sets logic on fire, and 
the speaker's achievement on the driest theme is 
apart from all frigidity. These flashes of goodness 
from the purified heart evoke the profoundest emo- 
tions of our mysterious nature; they awaken those 
profound sentiments which find their correspondence 
in nothing else. The speaker's nobility addresses 
the hearer's magnanimity. The depth of his con- 
victions creates in the listener those correspond- 
ingly profound. 

This analysis of true greatness shows how utterly 
men have misjudged in locating the power of elo- 
quence, and also how entirely they have deceived 
themselves in the constituent elements of great- 
ness. Not in kingly authority, in martial achieve- 
ment, or in sesthetic skill, but in those two manly 
elements — the power of the intellect and the good- 
ness of the heart. That alone may have a bewitch- 
ing glitter, but it would be the moon-beam on the 
iceberg. But when the intellect is bathed in good- 
ness its enchanting moonlight is vitalized into the 
life-giving noon-beam. Of the instances in which 
this has been exemplified time will not allow me to 
speak; many are found out of that bright array of 
orators, the echo of whose voices is the oracle of 
ages. Of those found in other elevated walks, let 
Newton and Herschel be specimens. Their home 



A BACGALAUllEATE ADDRESS. 271 

was in tlie starry worlds, and having detected their 
hidden laws, they looked back upon the generations 
above which they had towered, and called on them 
for new praises to the builder of the universe. 

Finally, let us take a manly view of our endur- 
ing relations to the universe — of our nature, of our 
duty, and of our destiny. Our powers, which once 
glowed with an awful brightness from the impress 
of Jehovah's image upon them, though they have 
since endured the blight of sin, are now restored by 
God the Word, who made our nature his chosen 
vestment. The stroke of guilt had blinded us to 
the grandeur of our own being. A few elapses 
from eternity tend to restore our vision. When 
our brother Elijah rolled his chariot of flame 
through the opened heavens to join the white-robed 
worshipers, a glimpse was had of human destiny. 
More fully was this disclosed when our Elder 
Brother allied himself to our nature, to elevate, 
honor, and glorify it, and with his own hand to 
unbar the everlasting doors before it. Were our 
nature not such that the chord which vibrates 
through the heavenly family thrills the human 
spirit — were it merely physical, then ought it to 
cling to earth with exhaustless tenacity. But being 
winged for endless flight, we should seize with a 
more than death-grasp on kindred objects. Though 
man's duty addresses him on as many sides as he 
sustains relations — though he has as many natures 
as there are worlds to which he is related — should 



272 LECTUKES AND ADDEESSES. 

the lowest absorb tbe highest ? — should the spirit- 
ual entomb itself in the material ? — the angel in 
the brute? Is it manly to turn coldly away from 
the great redemption of our double nature? — ^from 
what had birth among the Trinity in council? — 
that which the everlasting voice has eulogized as 
the fullness of the Father's grace, the brightness of 
the Son's glory, the plenitude of the Spirit's en- 
ergy? — that mighty scheme into which angels' eyes 
were strained to pierce? — that which forms a belt of 
love around the ransomed race? — is it manly to al- 
low the bright morning of life to be shrouded by 
the clouds of care and guilt before this unmatched 
provision is secured? 

As we have now reached the point where our 
ways divide, let us choose the course which shall 
reunite us amid the greetings of ransomed humanity. 



XIII. 
A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW: 

A LECTURE DELIVERED BY REQUEST TO THE STUDENTS 
OF THE GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN 1858. 



Young Gentlemen, — In accordance with your 
urgent request, I have briefly reviewed an article 
in the Westminster Eeview, in the volume for the 
present year, (1858,) and now propose to submit to 
you the results of that examination in the form of 
a lecture. The article in question alleges 'Hhe weak- 
ness and failure of FrotestantismJ' 

Through the early history of that quarterly the 
reviews it contained were rather occult than pal- 
pable. The blow aimed at Christianity was in- 
tended to be fatal, but the hand that dealt it was 
sought to be concealed. But the courage of con- 
tributors having greatly improved, the mask is now 
removed, and open hostility is broadly maintained. 
Of this you will require no other proof than the 
passages in the present article, on which I shall 
now proceed to animadvert. In the course of these 
strictures attention will be directed both to the 

facts and arguments employed by the reviewer. 

273 



274 LECTUKES AND ADDEESSES. 

In the special pleading of this review, we find 
opposite facts ignored, vanquished objections reas- 
serted, fallacious arguments combined anew, and 
abandoned positions confidently resumed. The very 
reverse of the proposition that Protestantism is de- 
caying is notoriously true. The evidence of it lies 
so entirely within the common intelligence that it 
certainly should not have escaped the reviewer. Is 
it not palpable that Protestantism is perpetually ex- 
tending its area by civic conquest over the Western 
continent; that it is recovering its lost theological 
ground in Central Europe; that never before w^as 
it so earnestly preparing to enlarge its missionary 
movements, which will be sustained by a predomin- 
ating Protestant civilization; that no continent on 
the globe lies beyond the field of its operations? 
Eecently the very heart of Africa, having been ex- 
plored, has evolved facilities for this evangelizing 
enterprise. Asia, having removed the bar to the 
ingress of Western mind, has become accessible to 
the Gospel. The spirit of the century has been 
silently moving on the European continent with 
such potency as to enlarge the bounds of religious 
toleration; and on our own continent Protestantism 
is enlarging its bounds commensurate with the ex- 
pansion of our civilization. 

The gloomy prophecy of the downfall of Protest- 
antism, in the face of all these facts, must argue in 
the prophet something worse than " b, pure heroical 
defect of thought." Never before did it develop 



A EEVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 275 

such elements of strength, and tower with such 
majest}^ amid the decay and ruins of all sorts of 
antagonisms. When did it ever antagonize so suc- 
cessfully with Popery, with heathenism, or with 
infidelity? How can the relative strength of Prot- 
estantism now be compared with itself eighty years 
ago, without perceiving its stupendous advancement 
on this continent? Then our great educational 
centers — such as Yale — had almost totally gone 
over to infidelity, and many of the leading minds 
of the Kevolution had renounced the oracles of 
God; now our centers of learning are instruments 
of Christianity — auxiliaries to the pulpit — and the 
power of Christian agency has been multiplied a 
hundredfold by our benevolent institutions. Which 
of these elements of power has infidelity been able 
permanently to ally to its interests? The utter 
want of all kindredship has rendered every attempt 
at this a rope of sand. It has not allied to it on 
the whole continent one great educational organ, 
nor a single periodical invested with power suffi- 
cient to command public respect; its strongest or- 
ganizations dare not face the light of day. The 
fact speaks volumes, that, wherever it exists among 
us, it is compelled to assume a religious guise; it 
occupies a Christian pulpit, not a pantheistic ros- 
trum; it asserts some high moral aims to give 
popularity to the brutal destiny it assigns to man; 
it turns advocate of tempera.nce, of universal suf- 
frage, of human rights, and the like, and thus 



276 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

gathers around it a tolerating public. This state- 
ment, susceptible of the largest illustration, is 
exemplified by Parker, Emerson, and coadjutors. 
And, indeed, despite of these cunning expedients, 
a wane irresistibly comes upon the disk of these 
brightest luminaries, demonstrating to all men that 
blank materialism or avowed atheism in any form 
can not retain patronage by all the aid derived 
from these popular topics; nor could it endure the 
test of experiment when it came in the alluring 
form of scientific socialism. Never has it made the 
oft-repeated attempt without the same fatal result, 
though the experiment has been conducted by mon- 
arch minds, and amid the concurrence of the most 
flattering circumstances. 

These are but shreds of that stupendous system 
of proofs which show that the elements of our na- 
ture preclude the possibility of self-sustaining infi- 
delity, and furnish an a priori argument for the 
permanent advance and everlasting stability of 
Christianity. But our adroit reviewer impugns 
Protestantism in the very records on which it re- 
poses. He complains that the Gospels consist, in 
part, of gross superstitions brought by the Jev/s 
from Babylon, and from other pagan sources. He 
instances the doctrine of '^demoniacal possession;" 
but with great leniency he acquits the sacred writ- 
ers of evil design, as '^ they only accommodated 
their dialect to the apprehension of the ignorant, 
and made no substantial error." Beyond all doubt, 



A. REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 277 

these evangelists needed some apology if, as he al- 
leges, they ascribed to personal agents — to devils — 
that which belongs to mere disease. These writers 
record the speeches, the expressed preferences, and 
personal acts of these ejected demons. Christ him- 
self claimed to cast them out ''by the finger of 
God," expressly recognizing their personal charac- 
ter. He both addressed them and was addressed 
by them. Before entering into the swine they im- 
plored his permission to do so. Christ granted 
their petition, and the sequel is recorded. What 
perversion could be more egregious than to predi- 
cate these personal words and acts of mere disease? 
''That many well-informed divines are ashamed of 
the Bible doctrine of devils," the reviewer may 
truthfully assert; but what does this prove? Not 
that the doctrine is untrue, or that interpretative 
rules of boundless license should be invented by 
which to dispose of it ; but simply that some pro- 
fessed divines are rationalists, and have sagacity to 
reject from God's Word whatever lies beyond the 
vast range of their own philosophy. Would not 
the same kind of hermeneutics that authorize men 
to laugh at demoniacal possession embolden them 
to reject from the Bible every trace of the super- 
natural ? 

Nor is our reviewer less stumbled by the ac- 
count of tongues given in the Acts, and in the 
Epistle to the Corinthians. "These," he says, 
" were no languages, but gibberish — as used by 



278 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

Irving and his congregation — whicb. St. Paul most 
probably felt to be nonsensical, unworthy, and gro- 
tesque; which he desired to repress, but did not 
dare to forbid." (p. 81.) After this statement it is 
not a little surprising to hear the same writer, on 
the same page, maintain that 'Hhese mysterious, 
unintelligible utterances were the same which the 
apostles and early Christians looked upon as effects 
of the Holy Spirit." What, did this far-seeing 
man regard them at the same time both nonsensical 
and ''effects of the Holy Spirit!" Had he, then, 
consecrated his lofty powers forever to the guidance 
of that Spirit whose effects were nonsensical ? 
Thus, to villify the miraculous character of Chris- 
tianity, our sage reviewer dares to stultify the 
most splendid mind of the age. This master-mind 
in the Christian movement undoubtedly regarded 
speaking with tongues among the Corinthians ''of 
the same Spirit as the other miraculous gifts enu- 
merated in his letter to them;" but not quite as 
identical with " nonsense and burlesque." 

Another evidence which our reviev/er finds of 
the sinking fortunes of Protestantism, "is the late 
abandonment of the old ground on which it wa.s sup- 
ported." (p. 82.) " He reminds us that from thirty 
to thirty-five years ago Paley's doctrine of the 
Christian evidence was dominant in both Universi- 
ties, and was received alike by High and Low 
Church ;" then recording a long list of learned 
bishops and eminent scholars, " who believed by 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 279 

invoking historic evidence they could acquire the as- 
sent of every intelligent mind to the Christian doc- 
trine." And let us demand why could they not? 
To this we have the astounding answer, that ''a re- 
action has taken place by two young men in Ox- 
ford — Pusey and Newman." So the Romanism of 
these two High Churchmen has neutralized the en- 
tire mass of historic evidence which has been the 
accumulation of ages, and in whose validity the 
mightiest minds have concurred. But why did the 
reviewer restrict his authorities to these two Oxford 
apostates? Had not powerful Romanists advocated 
substantially their views ages before they were 
born? How can the claimed infallibility of the 
universal Church, or the spiritual insight of the fa- 
vored individual m.ind, subvert historic evidence, or 
show that the facts of Christianity are unsuscep- 
tible of evidence, or that they are not significant of 
all that they have been supposed to imply ? Can 
these historic verities, which have withstood the 
floods and storms of ages, be uprooted by that 
small party of Germanized Puseyites? But feeling 
not quite secure in this position, the reviewer 
has found a stronger reason for the inevita.ble down- 
fall of Protestantism; this ''is in the atheistic tend- 
encies of science." His language is this, (p. 83 :) 
''Precisely because theologians will not consider 
first principles, . . . therefore it is that sci- 
ence tends to become atheistic." Had this charge 

specified the first principles, whose reconsideration 

24 



280 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

tlieologians have declined^ its refutation v/ould liave 
been facile. We demand of him what first prin- 
ciple have they failed to reconsider ? Which of the 
primary intuitions of the mind has not recently 
been investigated by M'Cosh and others? When 
has the causal principle in all its bearings been 
more thoroughly sifted ?- 

The pens have just dropped from the hands of 
four English writers who have furnished as many 
volumes on theism, who in several instances have 
gone down to the very roots of thought. In Ger- 
many more than a hundred volumes have been de- 
voted to this discussion within our own age, and in 
other parts of Europe the first principles involved 
in the subject have been analyzed and examined de 
novo. It is certainly not unknown to the deep 
reader that the improvements in psychology for the 
last half century have made first principles the 
matter of discussion by the best minds in Christen- 
dom. The reviewer's assertion must, therefore, be 
deemed entirely gratuitous. But he aims a blow 
directly at the divine authority of Eevelation in 
this language, (p. 84:) '^ Nothing more can be meant 
by an authoritative, infallible Bible than to dese- 
crate, in comparison to it, all the ordinary modes of 
learning truth, and duty, and rights." We may 
well doubt whether a grosser misstatement is con- 
ceivable. How can the acknowledged authority of 
the Bible restrict our researches in the vast terri- 
tory of truth and duty? Does not that sacred 



A EEVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER EEVIEW. 281 

book every-wliere recognize our previous knowledge 
of many truths? Does it not implicitly direct us 
to continue our researches beyond its own pages — 
to prove all things, and liold fast that which is 
good. Did not this inspired direction extend to 
what is out of the Bible it would involve the ab- 
surdity of supposing what was not good is contained 
in the Bible. But it was convenient to our reviewer 
to ignore this, and to apply to the whole range of all 
accessible truth what was merely applicable to the 
most positive precepts. But this is merely a ran- 
dom specimen of those fallacies which this argument 
so freely employs. Because disclosure of otherwise 
unknowable truth is authoritative, how can that 
preclude all other modes of acquiring truth, or dis- 
parage what is found elsewhere? Have these ob- 
jectors to an authoritative Bible yet to learn that 
it appertains to the very essence of its teachings to 
quicken research both within and without its own 
precincts. Is it unknown to them that this a priori 
truth is corroborated by the history of all Bible 
lands. The very reverse of the objections, therefore, 
is the well-accredited truth. 

But on the next page (85) a still more fatal 
thrust is made at revealed religion. ^'The world," 
says he, '4ias yet to wait for a religion which shall 
grow stronger and stronger with every development 
of sound scientific acquirement." We concede that 
'Hrue religion can not but strike its roots deeper 
with the cultivation of mind and increase of wis- 



282 LECTUEES AND ADKRESSES. 

dom," and this we affirm is tlie very thing which 
Protestant Christianity accomplishes. If the oppo- 
site be ever apparent the result is not legitimate, 
but is despite of the inborn tendency. The reviewer 
in this case, as in others, makes the effect of one 
element of the cause the exponent of the whole 
cause consisting of many elements. He has occa- 
sionally witnessed the decay of religion before the 
advance of science, and now suddenly rushes to the 
conclusion that the two are out of harmony — that 
the twilight of religion shrinks away before the 
meridian splendor of science. Because growing sci- 
ence has been known to induce infidelity in commu- 
nities long shrouded in the gloom of superstition, 
how can it verify the conclusion that science van- 
quishes Christianity? It vanquishes superstition; 
but this is the foe of Christianity: that which puts 
it to flight is, therefore, the ally of Christianity. 
Let every social force be removed from a Christian 
community but science, then can you fairly test the 
alleged repugnancy of the one to the other. Such 
an experiment would disclose the eternal harmony 
between them; it would be seen that the world has 
not to wait for such a religion, but that it de- 
scended among men when the Sun of eternity arose 
on time. 

In the course of his discussion this reviewer 
reaches the joyful conclusion that ^^Protestantism — 
that is, Christianity — has no future," (p. 84). The 
astounding disappearance of this great agency which 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 283 

lias swayed enlightened nations for almost twenty 
centuries, should be proclaimed by unmistakable 
events. What, then, is the unequivocal precursor 
of this great revolution? The first demonstration 
is in the alleged fact that ''a few distinguished 
writers fail to be understood." But what proof 
does this contain that Christianity has finished its 
weary course and must now lie down in death? 
As another evidence it is alleged that *'no writer 
of name will hazard his reputation by writing on 
the Trinity, or producing any extended work on the 
Atonement." The asserter of these propositions is, 
indeed, a man of courage. No ordinary hardihood 
would have sufficed to venture the assertion. Could 
it be unknown to him that some of the deepest 
thinkers of the age have just laid down their pens 
after the completion of the most elaborate works on 
both these subjects? 

But before advancing to other topics in the re- 
view, let us retrospect an earlier page, (75,) where he 
states, that ''under the measure of mental freedom 
which the great revolution against Charles I brought 
in, and by the aid of the growing indifference to re- 
ligion in France and elsewhere, physical science has 
in the two last centuries grown up." Our reviewer 
here, as elsewhere, betrays special fondness for this 
wholesale kind of assertion. Indeed, it is the only 
mode by which the materials at his command can 
be made to serve his cause. There are two stated 
facts here, that are so far untrue as to render the 



284 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

little whicli is true inapplicable. It is not a fact 
that a growing indifference to religion for the last 
two centuries in France, or in any other part of 
Christendom, prevailed. ISTor is it true that physical 
science had the most rapid advance in that portion 
of this period when religion w^as most declining. 
The reverse is true, as they have both most ad- 
vanced at the same period. This may be asserted, 
with the deepest emphasis, of our own half century. 
Within these fifty years the whole French nation 
have retraced with sadness their steps of departure 
from Christianity, returning to its fold. ISTor is this 
untrue of large portions of other European nations. 
That within the same period the pulse of Protest- 
antism has throbbed with unwonted vigor a thou- 
sand facts proclaim. Now that this same period, 
more than any other on the records of man, has 
witnessed the triumphs of physical science, is too 
notorious to admit of formal proof. ISTothing, there- 
fore, can be needful but a just classification of times 
and events, mentioned by the reviev\'er, to demon- 
strate his absolute falsity. Because religion declined 
at one period of the two centuries, and science ad- 
vanced during another period, what causal relation 
can be inferred betw^een the decline of religion and 
the revival of science ? Thus the whole force of his 
pompous statement is derived from the confusion of 
dates. 

But feeling that the whole strength of the Chris- 
tian cause lay in the truth of its Founder's death 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 285 

and resurrection, our reviewer has put fortli all his 
strength to call these great facts in question, (pp. 
78-80.) As to the time Christ hung on the cross 
the reviewer finds 'Uhe narrators at variance. 
Mark (xv, 25-34) distinctly states that Jesus was 
crucified at the third hour and died at the ninth 
hour." '^John as expressly tells us that he was 
not yet crucified at the sixth hour; (xix, 14;) 
that it was about the sixth hour when they cried 
out, Crucify him!" To bring the Sacred Eecord to 
the utmost extent into discredit, he makes the most 
of the difi'erences of commentators on the discrepan- 
cies, and even calls in Strauss to his aid, who re- 
gards the account of John to be a ''mythical addi- 
tion." Did not the reviewer know that the two 
modes of reckoning time in this nation entirely har- 
monize these apparent discrepancies? — that they di- 
vided the night into four periods, each containing 
three hours, and that the same division obtained of 
the day — the first three-hours' period commencing 
at sunrise, the second at nine, *the third at noon, 
the fourth at three? The other mode of division 
was into single hours, commencing at sunrise. 
Christ having been fastened to the cross soon after 
midday, John's sixth hour would correspond to 
Mark's third hour. About the sixth hour of the 
one and about the third hour of the other are pre- 
cisely the same period. But our reviewer's purpose 
could be served only by ignoring these obvious 
means of harmonizing these evangelists. But from 



286 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

this lie proceeds v/ith great adroitness to cast doubt 
on the reality of Christ's death and resurrection, 
putting forth all his strength to bring into doubt 
these two great facts. To give plausibility to the 
denial of Christ's death, he assigns to Pilate a spe- 
cial part to act in the affair, (p. 79,) and supposes 
'Hhe Governor secretly ordered the soldiers to re- 
move Jesus from the cross so soon as he appeared 
to faint, and deliver him to his friends" — 'Hhat 
on this account they refrained from breaking his 
legs; that John unwittingly suggests that Christ 
was not dead, by stating that when they were about 
to take him down a soldier pierced his side, out of 
which blood and water issued ; that he was not 
buried where suffocation would take place, but 
where he might receive surgical treatment and cor- 
dials." Was there ever a series of statements more 
perfectly imaginary ! Ought not the reviewer to 
feel that some sort of evidence would be demanded 
for allegations so utterly gratuitous; that some 
kind or degree of 'proof, mediate or direct, should 
at least give them plausibility ? But where is 
there a shadow of evidence that Pilate made the 
slightest movement toward the rescue of Christ's 
life after he surrendered him for crucifixion? In- 
deed, there is evidence directly against it. Had a 
collusion existed between the Governor and his offi- 
cers to prevent the death of Christ, would he have 
surrendered him to the custody of his crucifiers? — 
would he have directed them to make his tomb 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 287 

sure by filling its entrance with a large stone, seal- 
ing it so as to make its removal death? — would he 
have directed to surround it day and night by a 
perpetual watch, whose want of fidelity would have 
been fatal to themselves? When the entire nation 
was shaken to its center by the reported resurrec- 
tion, would not the secret that the Government had 
conspired to prevent his death have leaked out? 
But the reviewer imagines that he finds proof that 
Christ did not die on the cross, in the fact that 
blood flowed from his pierced side. He quotes Ori- 
gen, Euthimeus, and several of the Fathers, to 
prove that blood would not flow from a dead body 
^'though it were pierced a thousand times." But 
our reviewer, too tim.id to confide in the physiology 
of the early fathers, and too poor in material for 
proof to do without it, he adduces it that it may 
seem to avail ; hence, after he resigned it, he still 
clings to it, observing, ''We are too well aware of 
the delicacy of these physiological questions to 
speak so confidently ourselves." Why, then, speak 
of them at all? Did he not know there was not a 
shadow of truth in the allegation ? He adds, '' The 
flow of blood is most easily accounted for by sup- 
posing the circulation to be still active." But what 
has this to do with the impossibility of its flowing 
after death ? Indeed, the question has been determ- 
ined by the test of repeated experiment, and the 
result should extort from the reviewer the most 
humblino: concession. Nor is Christ's death bv 



288 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

crucifixion rendered doubtful by the instance of tlie 
surviving nun's crucifixion. Quoting from Dr. Me- 
rand; lie says of the two nuns, one of them affirmed 
that to be the twenty-first time she had been volun- 
tarily crucified. Because life does not become ex- 
tinct by being repeatedly fastened to a cross and 
immediately removed from it, does it prove that 
Christ, after hanging there three hours, and being 
pierced to the heart by a spear, was still alive? 
Were there truth in our reviewer's strange hypoth- 
esis, how could the scores of predictions involving 
Christ's death be disposed of? What possible solu- 
tion would remain of the moral and physical phe- 
nomena at the crucifixion? Nothing but the fact 
of his death, involving its supernatural aim, could 
account for his intense sorrow in the garden, the 
overwhelming agonies of the cross, the rending of 
the Temple vail, the three hours of total darkness, 
the quakings of the earth, and the rising of the 
dead saints. Did all these — the heavens and the 
earth, the living and the dead — conspire to set their 
terrific seal to the chicanery of the Governor ! In 
the light of all this mighty attestation, how puer- 
ile must appear all the carping of the reviewer ! 
Indeed, were his position tenable, the whole scheme 
of the New Testament would form a grand impos- 
ture. Its sublimest motives being drawn from the 
Eestorer's death, that is the stupendous center 
about which all the doctrines and events of the 
scheme circle. 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 289 

To invent a hypothesis, therefore, showing the 
unreality of Christ's death, is only the inception 
of a herculean task of subverting the best-estab- 
lished system of truth ever transmitted by human 
records. A solution must be given of all Christ's 
other miracles, which, like so many match-fires, 
blazed in every city in the nation; of all those 
of his apostles wrought in their risen Master's 
name; and a solution of that stupendous moral 
revolution which consumed by the fires of Pente- 
cost the superstitions of a hundred ages. But 
could this mighty overthrow be accomplished, still 
the deep yearnings of our moral nature would con- 
tinue to demand another scheme, replenished with 
every essential provision of this, so that the re- 
viewer's work is only completed when he has de- 
molished the moral powers that invest our deathless 
nature. 

But we shall dismiss our reviewer after a single 
glance at one more topic; namely, the resurrection 
of Christ. He seeks to neutralize the testimony of 
the witness as to this great fact by affirming the 
ethereal nature of Christ's resurrection body. To 
this end was perverted the language of St. Peter, 
where he says Christ was put to death in the flesh, 
but quickened by the Spirit; making this language 
mean that he was raised from the dead in a spirit- 
ual, invisible body. How can such a meaning be 
extorted from this text, which so palpably has a 
very difi'erent application, simply meaning that the 



290 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

Spirit's agency raised Christ's body from the dead? 
How could the reviewer honestly thus confound the 
manner of raising Christ's body with the 7iature 
of that body itself? But this is done not merely 
without evidence, but in the face of evidence. Did 
not the risen Savior claim to have the very body 
in which he was crucified? Did he not put this 
claim to the test of his disciples' senses? How un- 
mistakable is his language, ^^ Handle ?7ie and see, 
for a spirit hath not flesh and hones as ye see vie 
have!" What force, then, can we award to that 
allegation that 'Hhe disciples could not be witnesses, 
as they did not know Christ by their senses, but 
only by the symbolical act of breaking bread?" 
Though we have experience in the trustworthiness 
of the senses to recognize ordinary bodies, we have 
no such experience to identify an ethereal, glorified 
body with one that was once a human body. And 
what Christian ever pretended that we have, or 
that it was ever needed to identify Christ's risen 
body ? The reviewer first created the difficulty, 
and then stumbles at his own origination. He 
feigns the evidence of this partly in the disciples 
being unable to recognize him, and partly "in his 
vanishing out of their sight, and suddenly coming 
to them through walls and doors." But where is 
there a glimpse of evidence that Christ ever passed 
through a solid wall? His sudden appearance to 
his disciples, the doors being shut, may not be 
equivalent to his passing through them in that 



A REVIEW OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 21)1 

state. Why should an ethereal body be more 
necessary to pass through a shut door than to 
work any of his miracles prior to his death? This 
ethereal theory is not among those innocent specu- 
lations with which fancy may decorate revealed 
truth; it aims at the utter subversion of that 
truth. By making Christ's body unsubstantial, 
it directly contradicts Christ's assertion that ''it 
was flesh and honest It assumes that his body 
did not address his disciples' senses; Christ affirms 
that it did. It proclaims the apostles incompetent 
to identify as a fact Christ's risen body; Christ 
ordered them to be his witnesses to all nations of 
that fact. Indeed, St. Paul, by one sweeping argu- 
ment, suspends the whole Christian system on the 
reality of this one grand fact. (1 Cor. xv.) His 
enumeration of the witnesses — his inference from 
their united testimony — all assumed that the resur- 
rection body addressed men's senses. 

After the repeated refutation of the older argu- 
ment denying the competency of testimonial evidence 
to authenticate a miracle, our reviewer deemed it 
less hazardous to accomplish the same end by trans- 
muting the subject of the miracle into a mere phan- 
tom. He is unanxious whether, like Hume, he 
neutralizes the Christian witnesses by arraying the 
alleged testimony of all men against theirs, or by 
showing the worthlessness of their testimony by 
reason of the ethereal nature of its subject. Our 
closing utterance «hould be a note of warning to 



292 LECTUKES AXD ALDEESSES. 

tliis whole class of bold rejectors. They should be 
premonished that their midnight task is not com- 
pleted by their plausible attack on any one Chris- 
tian fact. The system they would subvert is vital 
in every part; the evidences sustaining it are so 
various in sorts, and so stupendous in degree, as 
to elude the most threatening blows which wit or 
malice can aim at it. 



XIV. 

CHARACTER AS COMECTED WITH SUCCESS 
IN THE SACRED OFFICE: 

AN ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE 
GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE FOR 1859. 



Beloved Pupils, — Having now reached the point 
where our ways divide, it is fit we should improve 
the occasion by a few brief utterances. Your in- 
structors, who have accompanied you with intense 
solicitude through your course, find this hour of 
your departure one at which their solicitude has 
culminated. In harmony with the occasion permit 
them through my lips to make a few suggestions 
on the momentous theme of ministerial character. 

Were we seeking every -where for a test of minis- 
terial success, where could it be found out of char- 
acter? The appliances and particular processes by 
which such character is formed are not now to be 
discussed. The lights that guide to these have glit- 
tered along the successive footsteps of your now fin- 
ished course. What remains is simply to advert to 
character as lying hack of success in the sacred office. 

There can be no manifestation of the minister to 

293 



294 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

which noble character does not bear a relation mys- 
teriously cogent. It renders his speech living and 
life-giving; it gives to words, those airy vibrations, 
a spirit which transfigures them. Essential to the 
development of our own sanctified manhood is 
courage, which calmly faces danger, looking the 
foe fully in the eye without the palpitation of one 
vein. This is a prominent element of that solidity 
of purpose, energy of feeling, and success in achiev- 
ing, which make life a success. It legitimately 
flows from a well-elaborated Christian mind — from a 
purified nature that is personal, ethereal, immortal, 
self-directing, responsible — a nature whose all-com- 
prehending relation is to Jehovah its source. This 
moral courage is the spinal column sustaining all 
that is noble and forcible in character. It consists 
not in indifi'erence or in occasional bravery; not in 
insensibility to danger, but in a heroism to face it 
while scanning it with the most vivid sensitivity. 
This calm, life-pervading spirit is ineffably diverse 
from that hasty, impulsive, transient bravery which 
is without inspiration beyond an excited hour — that 
has a higher source than the music of the martial 
field or even the shouts of a nation's applause; it 
can achieve its work in the awful presence of soli- 
tude; it can brave its sufferings when only God is 
nigh; it can do this under the cloud of a nation's 
frown and amid the fulminations of its iniquitous 
laws. The pending events of our nation, young 
ministers, may soon demand of you an exemplifica- 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER. 295 

tion of this virtue, when you may be called to main- 
tain a dignified silence — to be broken only when the 
crisis shall come. Then must your courage operate, 
preceded by no vaunting — serene as the Summer 
evening, firm as the column of adamant, anxious 
only to maintain the right. "What characteristic 
has been more prominent in the master-minds of the 
race? This has made the Husses, Luthers, and 
Keplers the heroes of successive ages, and the en- 
during monuments of human greatness. Every 
grace of character and of life derives nourishment 
from this virtue. It generates that deep and pow- 
erful harmony on which all melodies play. This 
makes the preacher far more eloquent than his 
words. This living spirit is fed by communion with 
the past — with prophets, apostles, martyrs, and with 
the living head of the family of the universe. 

But this heroism, which makes him fearless in the 
face of the clamor, repudiation, and penalty of per- 
secuting society, is allied to a sensibility, tender as 
a mother's heart, and discriminating as the intuitive 
glance. Being thus armed with the dignity of 
duty, the power of unity, the pressure of demon- 
stration, and with the tenderness of unsleeping sym- 
pathy — being thus insphered in the very mind of 
God — the speaker is resistless. What hearer will 
not love to be mastered by him? 

Another virtue which should shine in a preach- 
er's character is sympathy with human life. The 
cell of the monk, or the solitude of the hermit, was 



296 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

never the appointed sphere of God's embassadors. 
It is theirs to come in sympathetic contact with 
living society, to be moved by its interests, prompted 
by its inspirations, and assimilated to its likeness. 
In human life is the mystery of G-od's working — the 
hiding of his power. The globe was created for its 
residence, is preserved for its culture, and will learn 
to light its grand assent to its last ethereal abode. 
To be in full sympathy with such a personal essence 
can not fail to kindle a teacher's powers, to wing 
his words, and to give pertinency and dignity to his 
whole bearing. Insensibility to this great agency 
would be treachery to our noblest instincts, and 
would be untrue to the highest examples of history. 
Allow me, young gentlemen, to verify by only a sin- 
gle example — by that of the great Eestorer. Who 
was so adequate an appraiser of life as he who won 
it back by death? His sympathy with it was too 
intense for utterance. Its mystery filled his person. 
He knew its depth; his golden compass had marked 
its outlimits. Every-where he sought it out, ignor- 
ing every accidental distinction. Let it never escape 
his ministers that the instincts of his assumed hu- 
manity identified him with our nature in all its sor- 
rowing allotments, so that every sufferer found in 
his great heart a place for his woes. Is it strange 
that such a friend should win his silent way to uni- 
versal confidence? This is the ''typed man," in 
whom alone the real and ideal meet. Where but 
in the great Hebrew student shall be found his 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER. 297 

most perfect imitator? Paul dived so deeply into 
the mysteries of life as to feel responsibility for the 
moral rescue of universal humanity — to be a debtor 
to Jew and Gentile — to those that had never even 
seen his care-worn face. 

The most marked men of every age have been 
such as have most resembled him in this sympathy; 
they have most deeply moved their own genera- 
tions, and have rolled the wave of their elevating 
influence furthest into the depths of the future. I 
trust your experience will inform you how this 
sympathy matures into a heart-hunger for the high- 
est good of humanity; that it is confined to no sin- 
gle mode of manifestation, to no one channel, but 
that it permeates society, and finds an avenue in 
every connection of life. You will then have not 
only admiration for greatness, and reverence for 
dignity, but compassion for the erring, and sorrow 
for the bereaved, and especially for those on whose 
foreheads are stamped the hieroglyphics of enduring 
agony. 

But at this point I must conjure you not to mis- 
interpret the sympathy we commend. It is not a 
soft, irresolute, cowardly spirit, averse to positive 
character, winking at wrong-doing; its tenderness 
is not exceeded by its magnanimity. If it has an 
element of the dramatic, the poetic, the oratorical, 
it also contains a large infusion of the heroic. It 
invests the speaker with a power never exerted by 
the mere pressure of thought. Thus are you to re- 



298 LECTUEES A^'D ADDEESSES. 

srard this mvsterioiTS life of man standinsi; alone in 
its majesty beneatli the heavens. It is a spark 
fi'om the Eternal Mind — a natitre containing, germ- 
inantly, an endless history. As the statesman is 
superior to the State, and the astronomer sublimer 
than the mightiest orb he measttres, so does this 
life of man transcend all the events of his career. 

Xor is a relish for the cesthetic uniravortant to 
the Christian teacher. Without this taste he can 
not be in harmony with the majestic and the beau- 
tiful ; and as art is the interpreter and repre- 
sentative of nature, to perceive beauty in the one 
is to be in sympathy vith the other. Could you 
walk out into this palace of God unsmitten by its 
decorations, unthrilled by the glories investing it, 
you wottld pronounce it unworthy of the matchless 
skill of the Architect. The very habit of a minis- 
ter's thoughts should make his inmost soul respons- 
ive to the voiceful and inspiring creation. Has he 
no eye for the multiform tints of nature, no ear for 
the melody of her harp-like voices ? — then is he 
wantins; in that sensitivitv which is the hio-hest 
natural element of pttlpit power. Let the model 
minister — the Great Teacher in this regard — be 
your example. What scene in natttre did he not lay 
under contribution to his ministry? '"He overlaid 
Palestine with the beauty of parable," making its 
matchless scenes eloquent of his heavenly doctrines. 

Unless this taste for natttre pervades the preach- 
er's spirit with its soft and mellowing sensibility, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER. 299 

how can tie drink inspiration from those scattered 
lio-hts which the breath of God has kindled over its 
broad expanse? But when his eye sees its reveal- 
ments, when his ear hears its mystic harmonies, 
when his soul drinks her divine ^'nectar" — then, 
while his books furnish themes and his brain argu- 
ments, the easy, majestic sweep of thought will well 
up from the deep bosom of nature; then will his 
arguments resemble the arch of heaven in deriving 
their beauteous hues from what floats beneath its 
bright expanse. 

But to prevent undue extension, allow me to pass^ 
abruptly from this topic to one of still higher im- 
portance. I allude to that sT/mpathetic enthusiasm 
for truth with which God's embassador should ever 
glow. As truth is the ordained instrument for 
man's moral rescue, its heralds should never cease 
to be bathed in its brightness. He should ally 
himself, not to professional truth, but to all truth. 
This ever fresh sensibility to truth both radiates 
and invigorates character. Not that every class of 
truth should be investigated in an isolated manner, 
but in its vital relation to the great central truth 
of your profession. Though all truth does equally 
illustrate the cardinal principles of theology, yet 
the remotest within the compass of human thought, 
like the most distant stars, shed forth their propor- 
tional light. The habits of candor, discrimination, 
and catholicity generated by this large acquaint- 
ance with truth are invaluable. Though truth is 



300 LECTUEES AIs'D ADDRESSES. 

various as the unnumbered relations of mind and 
matter in the universe, it is still an organic whole ; 
it is one empire with many provinces — one body 
with many members. In its underlying principles, 
in its highest generalization, its unity resembles 
that of the Godhead. All beings, all forces, all 
forms are connected by its golden links. Xo rival- 
ships, no antagonisms can appertain to its different 
departments. The light emanating from all points 
intensifies the brightness of each central truth. 

Sympathy with truth is a vital element, an intel- 
lectual grace, and a source of beauty and weight to 
all utterances. You can know^ only by experience 
how much it will contribute to an accurately-bal- 
ancing judgment, to expanding compass of thought, 
to an acuteness in sifting analysis, and to the 
depth of sensibility. This perpetual growth of all 
your faculties can not fail to give a hidden charm 
to every truth you utter, removing from it all 
that is narrow and mere commonplace. You need 
not look beyond these attainments for the source of 
that commanding power by which master-minds 
have swayed their ages. While they looked back- 
w^ard through history, and forward through phi- 
losophy, they looked upAvard to God; while their 
thoughts were compact and their arguments sweep- 
ing, their sympathy w^as glowing, so that the whole 
sphere in w^hich their souls moved was a crystal 
concave 'lighted with the thoughts of God." This 
you will find to be a process which, inverting the 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER. 301 

usual order, increases force as the sphere is ex- 
panded in which it operates — diminishing the needed 
effort as the labor to be performed accumulates. 

But hastening toward a conclusion, I must detain 
you only by another general remark. It regards a 
vital adherence to righteousness. Am I right in 
the unqualified assertion that none should enter on 
the sacred office without a consummated conviction 
that the most clement form of God's government is 
rigidly just ? Do you demand, then, how so much 
partiality can diversify the present dispensation to 
the race ? The solution is easy ; the present is an 
economy of clemency, of forbearance, of test, which 
could never be endless, but must lose itself in the 
retributive principles, in whose operations all wrongs 
will be righted and all inequalities compensated. 
All partialities are, therefore, preparatives to per- 
fect equity — the one has its sphere in benevolence, 
the other in eternal justice. So far as benevolence 
transcends justice it may be partial; but should it 
conflict with justice, every attribute of God would 
be arrayed against it. This principle of righteous- 
ness underlies all phenomena and transcends all 
formal enactments. The minister, therefore, ex- 
pounds and advocates a government which can 
never have pleasure, happiness, or utility for its 
supreme end — which can never employ that policy 
which places profit before justice, gain above godli- 
ness — which can have no use for the arts and dis- 
guises belonging to human chicanery. 



302 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

For what purpose does the pulpit stand but to 
roll the thunders of justice against all such insults 
of justice ? Should it fail to do this, who can 
fathom the depth of degradation which will over- 
whelm a coming age? It may become your lot 
to minister to a congregation which will virtually 
prescribe the sins you should denounce by enjoin- 
ing silence in regard to others. You may declaim 
against the sins of the Jews, of the Pope, of here- 
tics, but not against the falsehood, the treachery, the 
licentiousness of our statesmen, of our party leaders, 
of our domestic tyrants. That mouthpiece of Je- 
hovah darino; to rebuke these must be put under a 
ban. By placing such restrictions on the pulpit, 
the crying sin of the South has gained its colossal 
proportions. That Avhich God's embassadors dare 
not denounce they will ultimately defend. Such 
has been the case in regard to " the sum of all 
villainies." It first imposed silence on the sacred 
desk; it then demanded sicpport from that very 
Gospel whose essence is the golden rule — the mu- 
tual rights of all human beings. This completed 
the grand apostasy, and prepared the way for that 
unparalleled outbreak which has shocked the whole 
civilized race. Had not the pulpit first ignored 
this huo;est encroachment on human rio;hts, and 
then advocated it in the name of man's common 
Father, the infernal rebellion would never have 
dared to lift its head. What would have been 
that minister's attitude who was an intense lover 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER. 6{J6 

of righteousness? Would he not have ''obeyed 
God rather than man?" Would not the whole field 
of his vision been filled by his great Exemplar, 
who died himself rather than justice should die? 
Having reached the point where ease, fortune, fame, 
or life itself, or justice must be surrendered, would 
he hesitate? 

night he regards as the basis of the Infinite 
Throne. The crowns, and robes, and harps, and 
all the insignia of glorified humanity could not 
allure him into a betrayal of justice. The greatest 
achievements of ages are never apart from this un- 
dying principle. It is the characteristic of the hero 
who has really won immortality. Monuments which 
hpove arisen to any lower principle crumble by the 
waste of time, but those commemorative of the love 
of right defy the tooth of time and the crush of 
worlds. As there is no attribute in God's nature 
which this perfection does not regulate, so there 
should be no faculty in ours which should remain 
unsubordinated to its authority. From these sug- 
gestions may we hope that this class will derive 
improved views of the ministerial character, and 
will go forth to practice upon them in their great 
work; that each minister may see, in the most un- 
clouded light, that his character involves that of a 
well-developed manhood — noble as is his unearthly 
theme — a fit basis of high Christian civilization? 
To the attainment of this he should feel himself 

quickened by the living voice from above, which 

26 



304 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

commands^ ''Quit yourselves like men — be strong.'* 
Of that Christian faith which indispensably un- 
derlies such a character I need not here minutely 
speak. Its nature, evidences, object, and scope, 
with the place assigned to it in the saving scheme, 
have been lucidly discussed in their proper places. 
You know that it grasps God's word, government, 
and character; that it takes hold of God's redeeming 
Son and sanctifying Spirit, and, therefore, it alone 
can vitalize every virtue that decks the minister's 
character; that without it those virtues would be 
cold and cheerless as the moon-beams on the ice- 
berg; through that alone come the sun-bursts of 
God's smile upon his toiling servants. It can not 
escape you, brethren, that this rapid sketch of "a 
minister for the times'' admits of large expansion 
and much illustration. It is fervently hoped that, 
in the practical works of your ministry, you will 
fill up this outline. And leaving, as you now do, 
those sacred halls toward which a thousand eyes 
are turned with intensity, let me remind you that 
this is the only mode in which you can best honor 
them. Thereby you will bear a noble testimony to 
the efficiency of the school of the prophets; to the 
lofty and steady aim of its laborious Faculty ; to 
the sublimie wisdom of its sainted founder. You 
will give to the winds the last doubt of its hesi- 
tating friends, and another age will bless Heaven 
that you were its inmates, and survived to be 
among its noblest representatives. 



XV. 
GROUNDS OF MINISTERIAL SUCCESS: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE GRADUATING CLASS 

WHICH HAD FINISHED ITS COURSE IN THE 

GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE. 



Beloved Pupils, — The part whicli you are about 
to act in the ministerial vocation will ever look 
back on that which you have already acted in our 
sacred halls. Your discipline here has been pro- 
spective of your elevated position there. The germ 
of the pastoral character has been deposited here, 
to be developed in its beauty and fragrance here- 
after. What is now rudimental must then be ma- 
ture. You have here explored the ■■ mysteries of 
mind, that you may there find an avenue for truth 
to its deepest recesses. You have here communed 
with the past that you may mold the future. You 
have been conversant with grammar, and logic, and 
rhetoric, not to make them intruders in the pulpit, 
but there to wield that truth by the might with 
which they have clothed your arm. Those ele- 
mental principles with which you have communed, 
lying along the outwalks of thought, are not pulpit 

805 



306 LECTURES AXD ADDRESSES. 

material, but instruments of mental opulence. They 
include particular truths, which are to be classified 
under them., as the arch of heaven, spanning the 
globe, includes all the separate objects on its sur- 
face. The prospective relation of principle to prac- 
tice is only equal to the retrospective relation of 
practice to principle. There is in the Bible, or 
pulpit, no one inoperative principle of truth. Prin- 
ciple finds its importance in practice, and practice 
its authority in principle. Should you cease to be 
students when you retire from our halls, you v\'ill 
tear asunder these which God has joined together. 
The law of progression, inscribed in light on all 
diligent minds, will operate in an inverted order 
till every great light in the field of intellectual vis- 
ion shall die away into twilight dimness. But kin- 
dled by the love of Calvary, and obedient to t'lo 
great law of mind, requiring one exer to be exceed- 
ing his former self, you will ally to your sacred 
vocation all other interests in the sphere of your 
being. 

One of the strongest grounds of the minister's 
success is his sacred and universal self-consecra- 
Tiox. To become a channel of spiritual light the 
soul must be absorbed in spiritual aims. This in- 
volves no rude sundering of social ties, no arro- 
gance of the bigot, no cynic's scowl, no ascetic's 
shirt of hair — not a hoarse murmur of seriousness. 
These are utterly alien to this sublime dedication; 
they form that dark thunder-cloud of superstition 



GKUUNDS OF MINISTERIAL SUCCESS. 307 

which may border the landscape of social gladness, 
but form no part of the breathing picture. This 
consecration of every power to the service of God's 
altar originates that hidden harmony which allies 
the minister to the interests of his race. This ex- 
alted position is a steep ascent, never attained but 
by calling into requisition every faculty of the soul 
and every grace from Heaven. It is the solitary 
eminence in the whole moral field, where the in- 
stincts are under the sway of that reason whose 
light is fed by the perpetual oil of grace. Here 
alone is security against recreancy to your obliga- 
tions. Abiding here, you will instinctively recoil 
from the approach of sin, as if your whole surface 
were one retina of the most delicate net-work. You 
will experience an inward development tending spon- 
taneously to yield your enlarging faculties to God's 
service. This is that mighty spring, seated deep 
within, that nothing can repress. Compared with 
this all semblances of goodness are like a painted 
sun to that blazing in the heavens — powerless as an 
infant's voice to recall the tenants of the tomb. 
How can the odors of the rose breathe from the ar- 
tificial flower ! Let this be an ever-abiding convic- 
tion, that this vital recognition of the Infinite Pres- 
ence is the only guiding pillar of fire through this 
probationary wilderness. While this disinherits the 
soul of doubt, of fear, of gloom — while it puts to 
flight every element of weakness, it bathes the 
whole scene of being in its own brightness. It 



308 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

makes every spot God's residence; every moment a 
golden grain of his Sabbath ; every pulse homage 
to his divinity; every thought incense in his tem- 
ple; every deed a sacrifice in his service. Thus 
arrayed with simplicity, and transparency, and en- 
ergy, when you throw the chain of living truth 
around the listeners, the Eternal Spirit will touch 
it with the electric spark, and restored humanity 
will rise up before you '^clothed and in its right 
mind." Monuments of your ministry's saving effi- 
cacy will not be wanting in earth or heaven, in 
time or eternity. 

But if the mysterious element of the minister's 
power lies in the depths of his own spirit, he must 
make that power felt by sympathy with three very 
different classes of objects— w^ith the truth which he 
wields, the mind he addresses, and the Infinite 
Spirit on which he relies. You will allow me, my 
dear brethren, to remind you, then, that unless 
your highest powers are in harmony with God's re- 
vealed truth, a subjective weakness will pervade 
every pulpit achievement. Should your faith stum- 
ble at the depth of the most fathomless truths, that 
inward infirmity will be inherited by all that hear 
you. You must feel the power of your own un- 
doubting belief in them, or your hearers can never 
feel it. Such must be your mental candor, integ- 
rity, and discernment, as to confide equally in that 
authoritative truth which has only external evi- 
dence, as in that rational truth which glows in the 



aiiOUNDS OF MINISTERIAL SUCCESS. 309 

light which itself emits. Full well you know that 
all spiritual truth involves relations lying in a ter- 
ritory beyond human intelligence; that faith, there- 
fore, has its mightiest power in its moral element. 
By this must you pass over that unbridged chasm 
dividing the seen from the unseen — the material 
from the spiritual — the made from the unmade — 
and confidently traverse the region unexplored by 
experience. It is this faith in the Word, which 
feeds on the realities drawn from the bosom of 
mystery, that girds the pulpit with power. The 
elements in which this principle is operative are 
the light of Calvary, the inspiration of Pentecost, 
the fires of the eternal judgment. 

But as the minister's power is relative to the 
'inind on which it acts, he must come into commu- 
nication with that mind. "Without this sympathy 
his richest endowments are wasted. In this great 
field you will find acquaintance important with two 
classes of objects — with properties and states com- 
mon to all, and with those peculiar to each. The 
volumes making these revealments are the Bible, 
the preacher's own experiences, and the recorded 
observations of our profession, which, in all ages, 
are most conversant with the inner man. From 
this threefold source you will derive a skill to make 
men rebuke their own errors, condemn their own 
sins, and shudder at the gulf opened before them by 
their own consciences, by the self-application of 
those laws you expound in their hearing. You 



310 LECTUKES AND ADDRESSES. 

will intuitively perceive whether a direct appeal to 
the heart, or whether a side-light let in on it at a 
certain angle, will be more efficient. 

Another element of pulpit power you will find in 
the deep sympathy of your moral nature with the 
conscience of your hearers. The pulpit, more than 
any other agent on earth, finds human conscience 
the field of its achievements. Nor is there another 
faculty of man invested with so much authority. 
The way of access to this stronghold of our nature 
must often be suggested by the preacher's own con- 
science. He must reproduce his former self when 
passing through their various moral states, and thus 
make their present condition his own. When thus 
all hearts will seem to beat in your bosom, the 
power to mold them will eminently clothe you. 
You will often touch a deep spring in the soul of 
the hearer by throwing out a single thought which 
you perceive to lie within the precincts of his asso- 
ciations. It is this profound moral symipathy which 
gives everlasting freshness to the sternest lessons 
of the pulpit. It was this power which gave the 
loftiest designation to His ministry who was one 
vast incarnate conscience. It was this that gave the 
morally sublime its consummation in his thoughts, 
words, life, and death. Let it be your secret power, 
whether you rouse the slumbering, guide the inquir- 
ing, or bind up the broken-hearted. 

But we have reserved the last place in this address 
to glance at a still higher object of the preacher's 



GROUNDS OF MINISTERIAL SUCCESS. 311 

sympathy. Allusion is had to his reliance on the 
Infinite Spirit. The combination of a double agency 
in effecting man's spiritual rescue is a primary prin- 
ciple in pulpit efficiency. There is no more fanati- 
cism in an enlightened reliance on the Spirit's effi- 
cacy than presumption in a proper reliance on the 
speaker's skill. While moral suasion is the sphere 
of the one, regenerating efficacy is the function of 
the other. That moment the pulpit assumes inde- 
pendent action of God's Spirit, the distance becomes 
infinite between the means and the end. The sim- 
ple motion of Moses' rod had as much adequacy in 
piling in heaps the ocean depths as pulpit eloquence 
in effecting conversions without the Spirit. Indeed, 
the preacher can not do his own part without a felt 
reliance on this agency. 

It will be found by the most rapid glance at the 
history of the pulpit, that the most distinguished 
embassadors of God have been arrayed with these 
three elements of power. They centered in Chry- 
sostom, whose voice shook the capital of the empire ; 
in Luther, who was a tower of superhuman strength ; 
in Baxter, who was the intensest flame of fire; in 
Wesley, the very echo of whose voice will startle 
far-off generations; in Hall, whose thoughts were a 
stream of light, reflected and refracted by the rain- 
bow power of his genius. They made Chalmers a 
cataract whose stream rushed from the everlasting 
mountains. These and a thousand more were in 

deep communion with Truth, with the sorrowful 

27 



312 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

heart of humanity, and with the Eternal Spirit of 
the heavens. Mindful of themselves no further 
than they were related to the spiritual rescue of 
their race, they lived for Him who died for them. 
My dear brethren, let me beseech you to regard 
such, not as prodigies of departed and returnless 
ages, but such as should ever be the occupants of 
the pulpit. Our own age should embody its power- 
ful principles here. Indeed, ministerial mind should 
ever be in advance of its ao'e. It should be the 
great reflector to throw forward a light which shall 
kindle in the bosom of the future. 

Among the few other parting words to which 
your teachers can here give utterance is the counsel 
to be ever self -relying and God-relying. Let each 
never depart from himself in the use of his powers. 
Let him never lose his orioinal mental traits. 

o 

ThrouQ;h whatever vicissitudes or advancements he 
may pass, let his grasp be firm on his inwoven dis- 
tinctives. God has no more cast all minds in the 
same mold than he has caused all the globes in the 
universe to run in the same path. There is an as- 
signed station to every minister no less than to 
every star. Another can no more do his w^ork than 
he can light up a sun. To neglect your own powers 
because another's are better is to abandon the place 
assigned you among the agents of the universe. It 
is putting a micnding-hand to what the skill of God 
had finished. We entreat you, then, to let your 
identity remain as changeless as your improvement 



GROUNDS OF MINISTERIAL SUCCESS. 313 

sliall be perpetual. All, tlien, will leave their paths 
tracks of light, various, it may be, as that reflected 
by the bow in the heavens, but beautiful and cheer- 
ing as that emblem of ancient promise. In the fer- 
vent hope, dear brethren, that each of you will thus 
nobly act his part, in the midst of the remembrances 
of this tender hour, we bid you an affectionate fare- 
well. 



XVI. 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS: 

DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEPARTURE OF 
REV. MR. BAUME AND FAMILY FOR INDIA. 



Mr. Chaieman and Christian Friends, — I oc- 
cupy to-night a place whicli would have been sup- 
plied by higher and brighter powers but for a single 
event in my own history. Twenty-two years since 
the throbbings of my brother's heart were in my 
bosom. It was not to India, but to South America, 
I was destined. But though it is his to remove the 
darkness of paganism, and .was mine to vanquish 
the superstition of Romanism, the similarity is suf- 
ficient for commensurate sympathy. 

May I then be permitted to direct your attention 
to India, the field he is to occupy? It has been the 
theater of many a drama — none more bloody than 
that recently transacted. Few greater events have 
transpired in man's history than India's revolt. It 
has stirred the civilized world; it has bathed En- 
gland in tears over the mangled corpses of her sons 
and daughters, and their little ones. It burst on 

the Government like a clap of thunder from a 

315 



316 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

cloudless heaven. The nation awoke, arose, and 
shook off apathy. She kindled into the intensest 
flame of retributive justice. To vindicate her in- 
sulted honor, and to reestablish her profaned au- 
thority, she blew the trumpet, rallying her most 
puissant forces. Till now the nation, as a whole, 
was unaware of her fearful responsibility in ruling 
India. The mutiny was an earthquake; it shook 
the British empire, but did not ingulf it. 

When, and where, and how, and by whom this 
fiery torrent should be arrested, was one of the 
most anxious inquiries that had thrilled the throne 
of England. There rests not on the shoulders of a 
government on earth a weightier responsibility than 
the prevention of its recurrence. England is indeed 
the most effective representative of the progressive 
tendencies of modern culture. By mutual interests 
and free institutions she binds in the bonds of 
brotherhood, more than any other nation, the fami- 
lies of the globe. That her organ, the East India 
Company, has failed to do for that ancient nation 
what Christian hope had panted for is undoubted; 
but the shift of power will make the future brighter 
than the past. 

None can glance at the history of that seat of 
ancient nations without finding it imbued with an 
air milder and graver than the romance of the 
Orient. It is isolated from Asia, that cradle of 
the race. It is a continent of itself. In population 
it outnumbers mysterious Africa, joined with all 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 317 

inhabiting both Americas. In its native resources 
it has no equaL Its collected treasure was too rich 
for exhaustion by a hundred desolating wars. A 
thousand years before the great advent from heaven 
Solomon's ships brought gold from Ophir; more than 
two thousand years ago the w^ealth of India tempted 
the cupidity of the Macedonian conqueror — Alex- 
ander would have seized it but for the mutiny of 
his phalanx. For long ages its marts supplied the 
cravings of Roman luxury. When the first Mo- 
hammedan invasion rolled its desolating flood over 
India — tenth century — it returned loaded with 
spoils richer than figures could compute. Though 
this garden of the globe seemed desolated by this 
flood which swept over it, it soon recovered its 
bloom, and became again tempting to other con- 
querors — even after it was weak as it was wealthy — 
seducing as it was helpless. For the last eighty 
years it has been held in the grasp of a commercial 
islet in the Western ocean. While Europe, now 
great in her seats of power, and science, and war, 
and commerce, was one vast forest, India was the 
home of Eastern civilization. There, far back in 
the world's morning, mind had its largest develop- 
ment. The science of Egypt was the younger sister 
of that which had long before kindled its glories in 
India. Her literature was more extensive than that 
of Greece and Eome ; her language — the Sanscrit — 
is more ancient, euphonious, more copious, and more 
philosophic than that with which Plato has charmed 



318 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

a hundred ages. It was parental to the ten living 
and prominent languages now used in India — to the 
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Portuguese, Grerman, 
and Spanish. It is the key to all linguistic study, 
excepting a few ancient languages first uttered in 
the cradle of the race. 

The aboriginals of this great peninsula have long 
since sunk unknown in the ocean of ages, unless 
some shreds of them make the w^ild tribes which 
for two thousand years have dwelt in that mount- 
ainous range, stretching across India, under the 
tropic of Cancer. The southern half of India, 
called Deccan, is a plateau, whose present people 
entered it before Abraham came to Palestine. They 
brought with them the germ of their unique future 
civilization. The sacred book — the Veda — of this 
ancient nation is the oldest and most authentic 
ante-historic monument of the European branch of 
the race. Indeed, this restores the historic rela- 
tions of all the European families of languages. 

The caste of India is the iron frame-work into 
which the Brahminical polity forced that ancient 
people. Long and arduous was the struggle before 
success crowned it; but once obtained it was never 
lost. Its overthrow has been attempted both by 
arms and by argument. The assault made upon it 
by Buddha is older than the Christian era. This 
heathen protestant aimed an extirpating blow at all 
the superstitious ceremonies of the hierarchy. His 
new system spread like the waters of the Deluge; 



A MISSIONARY ADDEESS. . 319 

but having atheism for its underlying principle, it 
failed to maintain the triumph it won, and the 
power of the Brahma has since been in the 
ascendant. 

But, friends, will you not recognize the tenacity 
of caste for life, also, in its utter defiance of the 
triumphal invader? If Mohammedan sovereignty 
for eight centuries was unable to shake this system, 
what must be its hold on the nations! We concede 
that Islamism is wanting in regenerating energy; 
that, if it has an element of strength in maintain- 
ing that God is one, it has a neutralizing element of 
weakness in alleging Mohammed is God's prophet; 
but, if it were unable to link the ancient civiliza- 
tion on to the modern — if it had no skill in re- 
juvenating and reconstructing — it was armed with 
mighty power for destruction. Still, the system of 
caste bore up against its desolating ravages. India 
was a great battle-field, on which conflicts were in- 
cessant between its old proprietors, its new masters, 
and the wild tribes on its borders. The last great 
Islam invasion — fourteenth century — made by Tam- 
erlane, overbore and crushed all before it, excepting 
caste. This remained unscathed in all its strength. 
This it withstood as it had done all other shocks of 
twenty centuries. 

Though the East India Company has existed since 
the sixteenth century, it has been a military power 
for less than half that period. The history of its 
last eighty years is alone in the annals of the race. 



320 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

It exliibits more of genius^ more of heroism, more 
of sacrifice, more that dazzles the imagination and 
outrages credibility than all Europe can produce 
during this period. That a business charter, given 
to a company of shopkeepers, should be transmuted 
into a title to hold the Empire of India, is not more 
marvelous than the astounding means by which it 
was achieved. These have furnished a theme on 
which great orators have vied with the mightiest 
men of their art in past ages. The world never 
saw a series of more brilliant victories than those 
achieved both in the field and in the cabinet. 
•Never before was there such a kingdom so gained, 
so held, so lost, and so regained. 

And, Mr. Chairman, would I could add, that 
those who fought and conquered did not also plun- 
der and oppress! But, tht)ugh the laurels of the 
heroes were not untarnished by the cruelties of the 
tyrant, I can not entirely agree with the chairman, 
that England has been utterly recreant regarding 
her obligation to India, and that the bloody revolt 
was a visitation of Providence. I believe that re- 
volt was a series of high-handed crimes — that Prov- 
idence restrains the effects of crimes, presses them 
in other channels, and appropriates them to opposite 
ends, but never instigates crime. The functions of 
that Divine agency are to check, arrest, and re- 
appropriate the deeds of darkness in this revolted 
race. 

Censure is due to England, but not unmixed with 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 321 

praise. Had her East India Company been Chris- 
tian philanthropists, instead of being brokers and 
usurers, its little agency would have been purely 
good. But even then, what would one faint ray of 
Christian light do toward dissipating the gloom of a 
hundred ages. 

As it was the English were but a single handful 
scattered over a vast empire, in the midst of one 
hundred and eighty millions of pagans, bound by 
the iron fetters of caste, which all the forces of a 
hundred ages have failed to dissolve. England and 
all conquerors of India found in this mysterious in- 
stitution of caste what they had found in nothing 
else. They could conquer the arms of India, but 
not the caste of India. That peninsula had bowed 
to more conquerors than history has chronicled, to 
miore invasions and revolutions than would have 
swept away any other civilization ever established 
by man. But, in spite of all those desolating hur- 
ricanes, caste has kept its place. Defiant as the 
everlasting mountains, it stands unimpaired. The 
many centuries which have contributed to the con- 
solidation of that system — the unmeasurable power 
of those agencies which have failed to subvert it — 
the manhood vigor it retains after the battle of 
thirty centuries — all prove its impregnable strength. 

The face of India, physically, has changed. Her 
successive conquerors have every- where left monu- 
ments of their power in the roads, canals, temples, 
and cities which they have made in India; but, 



322 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES. 

though they could build cities in the midst of 
mountains, and roll rivers over arid plains, and 
turn realms of sand to blooming gardens, they 
could not remove or substitute Brahminism. 

India in her institutions has proudly stood self- 
reliant at the grave of her empire. These are now 
just what they were when Alexander invaded their 
empire. As now their four castes then existed. 
The gods they then worshiped they now adore. 
Then, as now, their widows mounted the funeral 
pile — their fakirs, with hooks in their backs, swung 
in the air. Kelee then, as now, received her mid- 
night worship — the Juggernaut his noonday rides. 
Thus have the pressure of foreign forces, the rush 
of many ages, the fanaticism of triumphant Mussul- 
mans, which have laid empires in their grave, left 
the caste of India in her noonday glory. This sys- 
tem, which flourished before Jupiter reigned — its 
priesthood, whose claimed origin is the Creator's 
head, are the only immutable things in that sun- 
bright clime. 

What, then, is that lesson which these stern 
realities read to the Church ? Is it to desist, to 
withhold her missionaries, to quench the apostolic 
zeal of God's embassadors? Directly the reverse. 
We have proved that, out of the Gospel, there is 
no hope for India. Now, let that otker question 
be settled — Is there power in the Gospel comxmen- 
surate with this mighty resistance ? 

Listen to the echo of ancient voices. What says 



A MISSIONAEY ADDRESS. .323 

the history of its early march ? There we learn 
that once it grappled with the gladiatorial games 
of bloodthirsty Rome, with the wild barbarity of 
Scythian tribes, with the superstitious exclusive- 
ness of the selfish Jew, with the philosophic pride 
of the supercilious Greek, and with the inveterate 
corruption in libidinous Corinth. What was the 
part which the Gospel acted when antagonizing 
with these giant powers? Did it not make the fe- 
rocious B^oman mild as a lamb, the haughty Greek 
meek as a child, the licentious Corinthian pure as 
the robes of light, the wild Scythian tame and in 
his right mind, and the exclusive Jew philanthropic 
as the lofty soul of the missionary Paul? To the 
end of the world its Author accompanies it; its 
subjugating energy can not, therefore, waste by the 
lapse of ages. 

Because all other agencies have been too weak to 
crumble the adamantine wall of caste, is it, there- 
fore, impregnable to the Gospel of God? Is it not 
the grand aim, the high mission of the Gospel, to 
triumph over the wealth and wisdom, pride and 
prejudice, power and policy involved in all possible 
forms of sin? Let the Restorer and the destroyer 
have a fair field, and then let the battle rage ; will 
not enlisted angels greet the result? 

Do not the underlying principles of the Gospel 
recognize the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of the race — principles which will strike down 
that wall by which priestly usurpation has divided 



324 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

society? The mysterious stone that crumbled the 
image is but an emblem of that hidden power oper- 
ating through the Word to shatter to fragments 
these strongest holds of sin, which have been gath- 
ering strength for forty centuries. 

That Christ's charter should cover all nations is 
a demand of prophecy no less than of the vivifying 
and vitalizing principles of the Gospel. The most 
stubborn resistance to the missionary's progress is 
embodied in the religions of the race. The.se are in 
three classes; they make the religion of the priest, 
of the Empire, and of reason. That of the hie- 
rarchal type we have found in India. It places the 
highest responsibility of man in the priest, leaving 
their supreme interests in the invisible state to be 
adjusted by him. He, standing between them and 
the mysterious powers above, becomes a bar to 
their direct intercourse with the Father of spirits. 
Thus this usurping representative cuts off all com- 
munication of that grace by which alone the heart 
can be purified. The religion of the Empire is not 
less degrading. This subordinates to governmental 
purposes the highest functions of the immortal soul. 
It makes fidelity to God a means to that alleged 
higher end of obedience to the magistrate. It thus 
daringly inverts the order of means and end, by 
substituting relations to man for those binding him 
to the throne of God. It is the Gospel's function 
to restore this ancient order, giving supremacy once 
more to the Infinite Claimant. 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 325 

Nor do we hesitate to pronounce the religion 
of mere reason a device of the destroyer. To im- 
pose on this unaided faculty the task of morally 
rescuing revolted millions, is to require of the nat- 
ural what is restricted to the Divine — to demand 
of the offender that he find, unaided, his way back, 
unsraitten, to ofi'ended Sovereignty. His proud re- 
jection of the heavenly message is the function of 
infidel philosophy, and had an early sway in the 
Buddhism of India. All these groups of religions 
that of Kevelation is ordained to vanquish. This 
inculcates all religious truth, from what is fitted to 
the earliest dawn of intellect up to its meridian 
splendor — to all capacities, all cultures, all cli- 
mates, all periods, and to all dispensations. Its 
fundamental truths, like our great physical bless- 
ings, come within all capacities — like the air, the 
water, the light. Those, like these, may belong 
alike to the savage and sage, to the peasant and 
prince, to the slave and to the sovereign. 

A distinctive element in the Gospel which your 
missionary will propagate is its universality. Now, 
to attain its destined bounds, movement is indis- 
pensable. Of this its genius the Divine oracles 
furnish striking emblems. They speak of the mus- 
tard seed growing, leaven spreading, fire radiating, 
wheels revolving, a stone from the mountain rolliiig, 
an angel in the midst of heaven flying. You, Chris- 
tian friends, will sustain me when I affirm the har- 
mony is perfect between this genius of the Gospel, 



,326 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

the end it would accomplisli, and the felt duty of 
its ministers to extend it. 

A profound conviction of this duty is about to 
sunder the ties that bind to our hearts our depart- 
ing brother, who will now permit me to say to him, 
as the mouthpiece of the Church : Go, dear brother^ 
as God's messenger, far hence to preach the un- 
searchable riches of Christ. To be unmoved by 
the treasures you relinquish is impossible. From 
your native and adopted lands you will be ex- 
patriated; from those bright and tender circles 
ever encompassing the faithful pastor you will be 
severed. There, especially, are your spiritual chil- 
dren, whom you have inducted into the Kedeemer's 
fold, stretching out their beseeching hands and say- 
ing, with tears, Stay for us. But separation will 
not be a grave to these endearments; they will not 
waste by distance. In this the law of attraction is 
inverted; it grows stronger as the space enlarges. 
A quarter of the globe's circumference will make 
you dearer to us than would a quarter of a league. 
But distance, that bar to finite intercourse, will still 
menace us with enduring separation. While the 
same sun will beam on us by day, and the same 
moon glitter on the mantle of our night, the same 
beams of Christian association will cease to cast 
their mild splendors on you. You, my dear brother, 
will find humanity mufified in the deep gloom of 
three thousand years — blighted by an idolatry that 
crushes sympathies and kindles passions. You will 



A MISSIONARY ADDEESS. • 327 

leave that boon whicli is the last relinquished by a 
sensitive nature — congenial mind. 

Here our temporary farewells are cheered by the 
echoes they send back in speedy greetings; but the 
farewell about to tremble on your lips will return 
in no such greetings. Still, there is a hidden sense 
in which those one in affection have one abode. 
Their unity of soul supersedes proximity of body; 
and when you shall have faded in the distance from 
our sight — when your morning shall be our mid- 
night—even then, in spirit, we shall be present 
with you. For this mystic communion we shall 
not pass around the Cape of Good Hope, but di- 
rectly through the heavens. And when you shall 
kneel alone on that gloomy pagan coast, and no ear 
but God's shall hear your voice, ours will mingle 
with it in that great presence-chamber; there, there 
ive will meet you I 

And now, on the eve of your departure, we will 
unite to beseech God that his encompassing arms 
may protect your person, your wife, your little one, 
and your coadjutors from the stroke of accident, 
from the attack of disease, from the hand of vio- 
lence, and from the shafts of death; and that, when 
the hour of probationary tears shall have fled, and 
when on the heavenly plains new joys shall be kin- 
dled by the greetings of long-parted laborers, may 
thousands ransomed in India rush to your embrace, 
and hail you as their instrumental savior ! 

28 



XVII. 
THE FIELD OF MISSIONS : 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE MISSIONARY SOCI- 
ETY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
OF CHICAGO. 



Mr. Peesident and Friends, — The theme on 
which I am to address you being the field of mis- 
sions, a defect of unity of thought and elevation of 
style will be excused. When the Lord of the vine- 
yard affirmed that 'Hhe field is the world/' he made 
it commensurate with all the generations of our 
race ; and when he appointed all these to be hearers 
of his Word, the appointment involved the means 
of its universal dissemination. These means were 
purified and commissioned men, such as with whom 
it would be congruous for Jesus to abide to the end_ 
of the ^orld; their implements are the utterances 
of Jehovah's mouth; the seed they deposit in the 
moral soil should in the promised harvest multiply 
a hundredfold. Though the sowers of this seed are 
mortals, the reapers of the harvest shall be angels. 
Its growth has the long Summer of ages, its matur- 
ity shall be in the world's great Autumn. The first 
sheaf of this human harvest was taken off" Joseph's 

329 



330 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

tomb — the last sliall be found in the ultimate gen- 
eration of man, and '^ shall be caught up in the 
clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Then shall 
the whole harvest of the o-lobe be brought to the 
eternal garner with more than earthly shouts; but 
these sowers and reapers employed by the Husband- 
man will meet his approval and gain the reward of 
their agency. This great harvest, which was sown 
on various soil, which germinated and grew under 
raging storms, shall gain its full maturity beneath 
a broad and cloudless orb glowing in a new heaven. 
But it should not escape us, that we are now not 
rather to survey the field of our toil than to antici- 
pate the results of that fidelity with which we 
should cultivate it. It will be convenient to glance 
at this field in two great divisions — at that portion 
lying in the New World, and at those joortions lying 
out of the Western hernisjjJiere. 

In estimating the claims of '^the home field" on 
the Church, we must ascertain the supplies, the 
facilities, and the obstacles of this field. Till re- 
cently — till the great rebellion was inaugurated — 
we had regarded the lofty destiny of the New 
World, only awaiting the disclosure of the future as 
it seemed palpably written with a pen of fire on the 
adamantine leaves of time; but the great volume 
had only commenced unrolling, when v/e were ap- 
palled by a murky cloud which shades that destiny. 
The indication that this land was reserved to work 
out a mighty moral problem seemed clear as if 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. 331 

given by God's own finger. The peerless increase 
of our population, swelled by an immigrating tide 
flowing by millions from the Old World, promised 
to make this a nation of nations; but how suddenly 
has the gulf yawned beneath our institutions, men- 
acing their very existence! The demon of bloody 
discord, unchained from its confinement, seems des- 
tined to complete its work of ruin in 'Hhis land of 
the free," to which the oppressed of every clime 
had repaired to assert their manhood; but these 
guests from distant climes found in our midst one 
institution which, like fire in a palace of ice, was 
dissolving our civil fabric. Long had we gloried in 
our self-sustaining Christianity, alleging the proof 
of its inherent vitality, as displayed in the volun- 
tary support which upheld it. But anarchy, which 
is at once the ofispring of revolution and ih.Q parent 
of despotism, has its antecedent already attempted, 
and its sequence may soon be upon us. Should it 
come, who can say that the altar of God may not 
soon be chained to the throne of the tyrant, and 
the liberty of conscience be found among the things 
which have departed? A military despotism alike 
erects a scaff'old for patriots, and kindles the faggots 
for martyrs. But what shall be the appropriate 
agency to prevent such a result, and to perpetuate 
our institutions, and to reassure our nation's hope? 
A calm and piercing wisdom in our legislature, 
answers the statesman. Immaculate purity in our 
courts of justice, responds the jurist. Dauntless 



332 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

bravery and surpassing skill in the field of conflict, 
says the warrior. But history, assuring the Chris- 
tian that all these may be baffled, he eagerly in- 
quires. May there not be lying back behind all 
these secondary means a more puissant agency? Is 
not our ultimate conservative that balm, which is to 
heal the wound of the world?— that living Gospel 
which recognizes the fatherhood of- God and the 
brotherhood of man? But, despite the disastrous 
events now pending, the New "World will still con- 
tinue a thrilling object of missionary enterprise. 
When the storm of war shall have restrained its 
rage, millions will again rush to our shore from the 
nations of the older continents. The broad, and 
deep, and various channels through which these 
foreigners shall flow to our shores — coming over 
the Atlantic arid Pacific, from the West and from 
the Orient — will make the American family repre- 
sent all the families of the race. We can already 
enumerate Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, 
Spain, France, Africa, and China, which will not 
amount to a tithe of those sores of foreigners who 
are represented among us by more than eighty 
spoken languages. Among these are found all 
grades of superstition, from the semi-heathenized 
Catholic to those utterly pagan from the very heart 
of China. Along with these comes a class still 
more to be commiserated; I allude to the French 
and German infidels. They would dethrone the 
Almighty Mind, and raise the universe itself to 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. 333 

supremacy. We may not be aware of all the allure- 
ments that draw and all the forces that impel these 
strangers to our shores, but we can not be unaware 
of the design of that Providence which sends them 
among us. 

Glance with scrutiny at the superstition of the 
semi-paganized Catholic, at the midnight gloom of 
the pagan Chinese, and at the reckless audacity of 
avowed infidelity. The aggregate of these classes 
are counted by millions; they throng our cities; 
they are diffused over our rural districts; they 
must absorb or be absorbed; they must make us 
like themselves, or themselves be made like us. 
What, then, is our Gospel provision to secure this 
assimilation? The living mass in our great metrop- 
olis swells to more than half a million. Our pul- 
pits there do not exceed two hundred, conveying 
the Gospel to not more than one in five — to a pro- 
portion unequal to our native population. But if 
four-fifths lie out of the sphere of Gospel influence 
in that most favored city, what must be the condi- 
tion of those less favored — those stretching over the 
vast space between the most Eastern cities and the 
Pacific Ocean? Can the Church vindicate her pol- 
icy in so sparsely manning these centers of popula- 
tion? Can there be any foreign interest competing 
with that of those millions perishing at our very 
door? The Catholic class of these foreigners form 
a perfect organism. The concert, the steadiness, 
and the success with which it pursues its aim is no- 



331 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

torious. Its history for the last five centuries is 
alone among human annals. Within that period it 
has grappled successively with four tremendous 
forces, and triumphed in every conflict. E'o cor- 
rupt system has ever before proved itself so puis- 
sant an energy in society. Of this compact organ- 
ism nearly ono-sixth of our entire population is 
composed. At the head of these four millions are 
placed nearly two thousand priests, whose word is 
law, whose will is destiny, whose curse is perdition. 
Their asylums, schoolSj colleges, theological semi- 
naries, and confessionals are the instruments of 
their formidable power. These agencies, operating 
in perfect concert, are so thoroughly anti- American, 
anti-Protestant, and anti-Christian, as to constitute 
a subversive agency periling the institutions of the 
New World. To this strength how sadly dispro- 
portionate are our hundred missionaries among 
these millions, making only one missionary to forty 
thousand ! It is true, the proportion is greater to 
the twenty thousand Swedes, the thirty thousand 
Welsh, the fifteen thousand Swiss, the seventy-five 
thousand ISTorwegians, and to the ten thousand Chi- 
nese. This is also true of the one million two 
hundred thousand Germans, French, and Spaniards, 
and of the one hundred thousand Mexicans in our 
territories. Still, the proportion of missionaries 
operating on all these is fearfully small. 

Allow me to propose, as the second object of our 
home enterprise, the fourteen millions of our abo- 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. 335 

riginals in the two Americas. Our great inherit- 
ance was once theirs. The rapidity of their de- 
crease has a parallel only in the rapidity of our 
increase. Aside from the African race, none on the 
globe has been more peeled and crushed. The mere 
mention of the millions that, in the South American 
mines, sunk to a premature grave, is heart-rending. 
Only scattered fragments remain of all those tribes 
which once employed fifteen hundred languages. 
And in North America they have successively re- 
tired before the pale-faced invader, till they stand 
trembling before his ruthless violence on the brink 
of the Western Ocean. Most of the tribes in the 
United States and territories — seventy-five thou- 
sand — are now accessible to the missionary. Nu- 
merous of these communities are now inviting fields 
of Gospel labor, not one-fifth of which are now oc- 
cupied. I know that the exterminating sentence of 
these gloomy wanderers has long since been pro- 
nounced by the voice of events ; but shall they sink 
to the grave of forgotten nations — shall their sun 
go down behind the hills of eternity without our 
letting in one beam of the Star of Bethlehem to 
gild the midnight hour of their doom? We must 
respond to that authoritative demand, whether our 
energies shall be exhausted on the Kafiir, the Hin- 
doo, and the Hottentot, to the utter neglect of the 
Blackfoot, the Flathead, the Camanche, the Pata- 
gonian, and the Esquimaux? 

But the African race in the New World forms 
•29 



336 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

anotlier object of our enterprise within our national 
precincts. Nearly four millions of these are slaves ; 
half a million are nominally free, but in several of 
the States they find no place for the soles of their 
feet. For all these five hundred thousand not a 
white missionary labors. Of our relations to the 
millions in bondage I dare not trust myself to 
speak. Never before did the light of Goshen and 
the night of Egypt dwell so long in juxtaposition. 
Here is the blackest cloud that ever canopied a 
pagan allotment, and yet it is fringed with the 
light of a peerless freedom and a pure Christianity. 
Never before did the sun shine on such a spectacle. 
Though one in twelve of these bondmen are in the 
Church, how mutilated is the Gospel they hear; 
while the great mass, apart from this small frag- 
ment, are wrapped in an unmitigated darkness! 
Am I, then, required to prescribe the mode in 
which the Gospel may reach them? On this I 
must be silent till the plan of Providence in this 
rebellion shall be further unfolded. When the 
trumpet of freedom, blown by the lips of authority, 
shall send its shrill blast over the whole circumfer- 
ence of slavedom — then when the jubilee shall have 
come, and the living echo shall fly, and be propa- 
gated by the mighty shout of emancipated mill- 
ions — then will the Gospel have free course through 
all this realm of heathendom. I know this bloody 
revolution was inaugurated to rivet and eternize 
their fetters ; but He that sitteth in the heavens 



I 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. ^ 337 

shall laugh — his hand shall strike off those fetters. 
But we have delayed too long on our own mission- 
ary field a^HOME; let us merely glance at the claims 
of the foreign field on the Church. 

Among the thousands of the West India Islanders 
there are only three hundred and sixty- two mis- 
sionaries and less than eighty thousand members. 
The Pacific Islands, sixty years since shrouded 
in pagan gloom, have now one hundred and forty 
missionaries, about one thousand helpers, and more 
than fifty thousand members. On the Western 
coast of Africa, where the horrors of the slave-trade 
had long deepened the gloom of heathenism, are now 
one hundred churches, fifteen thousand members, 
and as many more native youth in Christian schools, 
and the Bible in more than twenty languages. 
This populous continent, next to India, is throwing 
open its wonders to the eye of science, and promises 
soon to become the broad theater of ap^Q^ressive 
Christian movement. In Turkey, where Islamism 
is working out its great experiment — where it has 
occupied more than a thousand years in testing its 
institutions, and where, in the very garden of the 
globe, it is rapidly dying — there, where the door is 
now open to our missionaries, we have but seventy- 
six among this mass of one hundred and forty mill- 
ions of Mussulmans. The paralytic shock which 
fell on paganism prior to Christ's advent seems to 
have smitten Mohammedanism. A thousand mis- 
sionaries, ready to be martyrs, should noiv be there. 



338 LECTURES AND ADDEESSES. 

We must next refer you to the stupendous mass 
of humanity crowded too;ether in China, and in- 
quire how many Christian agents have the Churches 
sent to save these four hundred millions? The re- 
ply is chilling w^hen the answer is less than two 
hundred, including all their native helpers — less 
than one missionary to two millions of pagans. 

Passing in silence the millions of Catholics and 
the smaller fields in Scandinavia and Germany, let 
us advert to India. Exclusive of the Archipelago 
of Thibet and Siam, which have but fifty-one mis- 
sionaries, that popttlous land, older in science and 
more perfect in language than Greece itself — the 
parent of all the classic tongues, and rivaling in 
antiquity the theocracy of Palestine — this ancient 
land, within whose precincts the rebellion has just 
been crushed out, is noAv eminently open to the 
Gospel. ISTearly five hundred missionaries, with 
nearly four times this number of helpers, are now 
ctiltivating that great field. But w^hat are these, 
with their thirty-three thousand members, and the 
Scriptures in fourteen languages ? What are these 
among two hundred millions bound in the adamant- 
ine chains of caste ? More than two thousand years 
that wall of steel has been enlarging in its propor- 
tions. x\ll the subverting influence of revolution 
and conquest has failed to crumble it; under the 
whole heavens there is but one agency adequate to 
this achievement — that is the Gospel power wielded 
by your missionaries. 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. 339 

But these details must be concluded by a general 
statement or two. Of all the one thousand five 
hundred and thirty-six missionaries in the foreign 
fields, only four hundred and eighty go from the 
American Churches; consequently, one thousand 
and seventy are from the Protestant Churches in 
the Old World; so that our Churches are exceeded 
by more than a hundred per cent. The sum total 
expended annually for all foreign missions is less 
than four millions. That which all Christendom 
spends annually for war averages eight hundred 
millions ; so that two hundred times as much is 
spent for the destruction of men as is devoted to 
saving them. The disproportion is still more as- 
tounding between the number employed in the bat- 
tle-field and the mission-field. Here are fifteen thou- 
sand missionaries employed to enlighten six hundred 
millions of heathens; and these millions are pass- 
ing away at the fearful rate of ninety- two thou- 
sand per day; equal to four thousand per hour — 
more than one each second. Who shall arrest this 
tide of souls in its fearful plunge ? Will not hearts, 
fired by the love of Calvary, pant to do this at any 
sacrifice? Would they not do it, though sure of 
falling on the scorching sands of Africa, or of 
bleaching their bones under the burning sun of 
India? 

Permit me now to close this address by a rapid 
glance at the missionary relations between the home 
work and the foreign work. The law of Christian 



340 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

agency can not be out of harmony with the law of 
social agency. This law graduates obligations by 
proximity; this nearness may be in consanguinity, 
in contiguity, or in other facilities of mutual action.. 
We can not be unaware that the genius of the moral 
system makes its first requisition for self-culture. 
The pra.cticability of the second requisition to cul- 
tivate others is suspended entirely on fidelity to the 
first. Each must acquire the qualities, the excel- 
lences he would communicate — must possess them 
before he can transfer them. Such are Christian 
graces inherently as to operate vigorously as they 
can do it successfully. Self-improvem.ent is social 
improvement; self-neglect is social neglect. This 
is the principle which requires the individual to 
work outward toward the circumference — through 
the domestic and neighborhood spheres toward the 
more distant objects. The same order is appointed 
to regulate Church agencies. Its own spirituality 
is first an intrinsic glow; next the vicinity feels the 
contagion; then it pervades the larger sphere; then 
in its outward course, mingling with kindred influ- 
ences, it swells into a tide which rolls beyond the 
bounds of Christendom to assimilate dark nations, 
into the likeness of the Christian Church. The 
missionary spirit, then, does not kindle the life of 
the Church, but is kindled by that spirit; it is not 
its cause, but its index. The one is the fountain; 
the other is its stream. These may reflexively 
augment their source, but can not originate their 



THE FIELD OF MISSIONS. 341 

source. The course of action in every living or- 
ganism is from the center outward, not from the 
circumference toward the center. Feebleness at 
the deep seat of life generates inefficiency at the 
extremities; the inactivity of the limbs results from 
the weakness of the heart's palpitation. The radia- 
tions of heat must ever be in proportion to the 
volume and intensity of the flame. In obedience 
to the same law is the divergency of light which 
so beautifully symbolizes the spirit of missions. 

Indeed, all vital power which mysteriously per- 
vades every thing living in the universe, acts from 
the center, and fills a sphere whose extent is the 
measure of its inherent vigor. Mark this phenomx- 
enon of Christianity at its inception ! So intense 
was the holy flame kindled at Jerusalem, that with- 
in one short age its radiations pierced the gloom of 
whole nations. Did the American Churches glow 
with that apostolic ardor, this continent would be a 
lofty lamp -stand from which the sacred flame would 
flash over all heathendom. How, then, shall our ef- 
forts be made commensurate with our object? By a 
boundless confidence in the Gospel, and by a hope- 
lessness in all other means — a profound conviction 
of its fitness to the nature, the character, and the 
condition of the race — a confidence in the compre- 
hensive truths it involves, such as the unity , the 
corruption, and the ransom of the whole species. 
All other remedial schemes may be classed in the 
three systems; namely, the religion of the Empire^ 



342 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

the religion of the priesthood^ and the religion of 
unaided reason. By analyzing the elements of 
these it is easy to see that they must have been 
put to the test of unsuccessful experiment. The 
first pressed man's religious nature into the pur- 
poses of tyrannizing over him; the second, for self- 
ish ends, usurped the Creator's place by the 
pretense of being G-od's vicegerent; the third su- 
perseded all revelation from Heaven by proclaiming 
the sufficiency of mere reason to pierce the arcana 
of eternity. The Gospel stands alone as a remedy ; 
it does not ignore man's relapse, but provides for 
his restoration, irrespective of climate, or color, or 
age, or sex, or any other possible circumstance. 
Unlike the ancient religions of the Ganges and of 
Scandinavia — which to perish needed but to ex- 
change places — that of the Gospel flourishes with 
equal bloom amid the perpetual snows of Eussia and 
in the long Summers of the tropics. Let us, then, 
make the extension of this everlasting Gospel com- 
mensurate with its applicability. Let us rest not 
till the whole earth becomes an altar, the affections 
of the transformed race an offering, and the love of 
Calvary becomes a kindling fire — till from every 
heart that throbs in a human bosom pure incense 
shall arise to our crucified and matchless Restorer. 



XVIII. 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS: 

DELIVERED ON THE DEPARTURE OF REV. J. R. DOWNEY 
AND WIFE FOR INDIA. 



Mr. President and Friends, — The enterprise 
which has convoked us once occupied the Trinity 
in council — not a mission from America to India, 
but a mission from heaven to earth; the missionary 
was not our brother with his companion, but God's 
Son with our wedded nature; it was not for the re- 
demption of a nation in Asia, but for the ransom of 
all that inhabit the globe. But all' this difference 
between the species and genus removes not the 
kindredship between them. Every missionary is a 
worker together with God. His acts look back to 
the redemptive principle, and his achievements are 
illustrations of that principle. We have reached a 
period in which Christian missions to foreign lands 
are largely approved, though by different parties 
this approval is on various grounds. A large class 
approving them do it solely on secular grounds. 
The greater thrift which Christian missions have se- 
cured to pagan communities has como. to the knowl- 

343 



344 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

edge of sucli tlirough foreign travels, missionary 
reports, and kindred sources. The domestic com- 
fort, neigliborliood schools, jDrinting-presses, hospi- 
tals, and churches, have made mission stations an 
oasis in the desert. The contributions they have 
made to geography, natural history, and to geolog- 
ical phenomena have extorted the eulogies of these 
secularists. 

Meantime missions have been considered on a.n- 
other side by mere philanthropists. Such eulogize 
them in their literaey aspect. Finding that 
scores of languages, otherwise unknown, have by 
the missionary been reduced to alphabetic order 
and handed over to the multiplying agency of the 
press, that large contributions are thus made to 
comparative philology, and that ethnology has been 
improved from the same source, he regards missions 
as the handmaid to literature. Viewing missions 
from a still higher point, the philanthropist, with a 
benignant eye on the elevating processes of the 
school, the press, and the Church on the pagan 
mind, pronounces missions the friend of man, judg- 
ing that whatever vanquishes beastly degradation, 
and rekindles the light of long-extinguished reason, 
must be an unmitigated good. 

The development of such facts has compelled even 
the freethinkers of England to pronounce eulogies 
on missions. The Westminster Eeview — that me- 
dium for English deism — ignores that living spirit 
from which missions derive all their energy, and 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 345 

yet declares their 'Hrue object is the hope of rais- 
ing whole nations out of a state of idolatrous 
corruption in morals into a condition of Chris- 
tian civilization." How unequivocal must be these 
sublime results of missions to extort such praise 
from such a source! Still, merely their human 
characteristics are here recognized; they termin- 
ate the crimes, the cruelties, the superstition of 
paganism — being an element of social power. How 
consistently these gentlemen eulogize the ivorkings 
of this institution, and vilify the principle from 
which it derives all its energy, we leave others to 
determine. To sneer at the cause and eulogize 
the legitimate effect; to suppose the Gospel inerdy 
human, and yet to allow that it works out a result 
to which no other human means are adequate; to 
allow that it strikes at the root of deep-seated vice, 
and yet itself is merely a temporary good; to do 
this may be worthy of deism. What will such 
thinkers answer when you put the questions direct : 
Are not the highest interests of man those of his 
spiritual nature? Are not his noblest relations 
such as bind him to a wasteless future? Must not 
his moral elevation of character demand a propor- 
tionally-higher allotment in the endless future which 
is bursting upon you? Must they not deny to man 
a nature surviving dissolution, or cease to elevate 
his mere civilization above that etherealizing, moral 
purity which allies him to the Great Unseen? 
That the Gospel assumes an adequacy to refine tlie 



346 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

polluted is obtrusively clear on tlie very face of it. 
If this power do not invest it its claim is an impos- 
ture, and it could, therefore, never impart the boon 
of civilization which even infidels award to it. It 
must do less than this, or it must be able to do 
immeasurably more. The monstrous conclusion 
reached by this secular theory of missions must not 
escape us — it is this: that idolatry alone needs to 
be vanquished, and that, therefore, it does not in- 
volve the most degrading vices. Biblical descrip- 
tion and direct observation combine with ancient 
history to show that idolatry is but one of the 
manifestations of the profoundest heart corrup- 
tion. The nations of Canaan, the Cities of the 
Plain, are divinely represented festering in their 
pollution, as specimens of idolaters. No new proof 
can be demanded that polytheism and corruption 
are commensurate. No true picture of idolatry was 
ever without the most revolting features. That 
drawn by Inspiration (Kom. chap, i) is peculiar to 
no age or country. It is true the lapse of twenty 
centuries has deepened the colors of that dark pic- 
ture. The dreadful leprosy, instead of fading, has 
become more deeply struck within- When Echart — ■ 
the missionary to Hindoostan — read to his pagan 
audience St. Paul's catalogue of pagan vices, they 
confessed the exactitude with which the reality 
among themselves corresponded to the delineation 
of the apostle. ''None but a personal observer of 
heathenism," adds the missionary, ''can grasp the 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 347 

full import of those inspired epithets, or pronounce 
them with appropriate depth of emphasis." 

It is not possible that the murky cloud which has 
shaded pagan lands should not have grown denser 
through all the past apostolic ages. When the 
celestial message first stirred the stagnant mass the 
resistance was fierce, but its scope for accumulation 
since has been fearful. This class fearfully blunder 
in the conclusion that the absence of virtue is not 
the presence of vice. Were this so perfect neutral- 
ity in morals would be possible, leaving a highly- 
endowed intelligence irresponsible. The secular 
theory of missions in question is, therefore, amaz- 
ingly superficial, not having a single apprehension 
commensurate to heathen character. Had the Gos- 
pel no higher aim than to civilize it would certainly 
fail to do this. It proclaims the regeneration of the 
heart to be its paramount aim. If it can not efi'ect 
this it is an imposture, and, as such, can not do the 
other. That must be a strange view of God's gov- 
ernment which supposes it can employ duplicity to 
work out its ennobling designs. Indeed, were there 
truth in the secular theory no missionary would 
ever enter the foreign field. The speculating trav- 
eler might enter it to listen with a curious ear, or 
inspect with an eager eye, the novel scenes of be- 
nighted humanity; he might flit over such a realm 
like a butterfly across a flowery field, but never 
would he patiently toil with the benighted to van- 
quish his ignorance and reconstruct the processes of 



348 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

liis faculties. The history of the world may be 
challenged to furnish a single instance of all the in- 
fidels or skeptics on earth ever sending a single 
missionary to accomplish for the heathen that civil- 
ization which they deem the highest object of the 
Gospel. The fact is that the great element of power 
which works deep down in our nature is utterly 
wanting in their Wintery scheme. They seem in- 
stinctively aware that the mom^ent the secondary 
effect of the G-ospel is substituted for its primary 
aim — the instant the reflex is put for the direct — 
both vanish together. Indeed, the stupidity is 
scarcely endurable of supposing that the reflex in- 
fluence could survive for one moment after the 
primary aim is canceled; after the cause is anni- 
hilated, how can the effect continue to arise from it? 
This broad fact, then, is highly significant; name- 
ly, that the advocates of this secular theory have 
never, in one instance, experimented on its efiicacy : 
this alone strongly indicates their conviction of its 
powerlessness. They admit — ^through the Westmin- 
ster Review — that 'Hhe Christian motive, above all 
others, impels the missionary on in his work of sac- 
rifice;" but how can this motive, which they main- 
tain to be false, be the most cogent within the 
sphere of philanthropy? Is the moral system such 
tha^t its interests are best promoted by falsehood? 
They allow that '^nothing but Christian conviction 
can create an imperative feeling of obligation to fly 
to heathen rescue;" and yet this conviction is one 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 349 

only of pitiful self-del asion. If, as is here conceded, 
the temporal calamity of benighted nations can not 
rouse enlightened races to relieve them, and their 
rescue from eternal agony can, is this more quick- 
ening motive a false one? Must all the true mo- 
tives within the range of thought fail to prompt to 
the highest achievements of humanity, and self-de- 
lusion alone be competent to do it? Eestore the 
process to its Scriptural order, by making the sal- 
vation of the soul the supreme aim, then the co- 
gency of the motive accounts for the loftiness of the 
achievement, and for every incidental effect arising 
from, so Q;odlike an aim. The work of the mission- 
ary is to let into pagan mind light above the bright- 
ness of the sun; not in its blinding floods, but in 
its growing intensity; not so much for their 
perception of guilt — of this they are agonizingly 
aware — but for their discovery of a remedy of 
which they have never heard. Conscious they are 
of the wrath with which the heavens frown over 
them ; but how that wrath can be made to melt 
away into a Divine smile they know not. The 
missionary utters the Divine Eestorer's name, the 
gloom breaks away, and new ends of existence start 
into light. His simple assurance 'Hhat Grod can bo 
just and the justifier of him that believeth in Je- 
sus," gives a new element to repentance, justifying 
power to faith, and an infinite object to hope. 
Christian missions TYiultiply and intensify saving 
motives. They give to the benighted the Bible, 



350 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

the Sabbath, the ministry, and the Church, 
Each of these is a powerfully-modifying agency, 
and together they soon work out for a community 
a new social system. That gloom is soon van- 
quished which concealed the purity of God's justice, 
the sanction of his law, the depth of his mercy, and 
the sublime mystery of the incarnation. But these 
spiritual discoveries are so far from precluding an 
incidental end that they necessarily issue in it. 
What produces inward purity to the converted pa- 
gan through this secures to him outward thrift. 
This effect can no more be substituted for the cause 
than the order of the two can be transposed. The 
powerful operation of the Gospel on the civil and 
social relations of man is through the viewless 
agency working on the inner man — the one is sim- 
ply the outward manifestation of the other. The 
fountain becoming pure, the streams are sweet; the 
character of the fruit corresponds with that of the 
tree; the purity of life flows from the sanctity of 
the heart, and not, as our theorists would maintain, 
a manifestation in the outer man of what was not 
in the inner man. 

But as India is the destination of these mission- 
aries, a few utterances regarding that ancient land 
may be proper. In one aspect India is interesting — 
there Hindooism stands alone, as it has stood for 
thousands of years; it is the fact of a living an- 
tiquity of a high order. What other human institu- 
tion of so early date has not long been among the 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 351 

tilings that were? But for tlie perpetuating voice 
of history it would now be as though it had never 
been. But this Hindooism, hoary with the frosts 
of a hundred ages, is now what it was when Alex- 
ander invaded the Indies. What must be the rigor 
of that system which has sustained that physical 
and intellectual life of the nation in spite of its 
crushing errors and abominable idolatry ! This in- 
stitution, stretching through so large a portion of 
man's history, makes India a field of interest to all 
earnest inquirers. Here the ethnologist finds scope 
of his researches. Here the Scriptural interpreter 
and antiquarian will not be disappointed. Compar- 
ative philology no where else finds more materials 
than in India. There lies the Sanscrit, dead but 
unburied, the parent language of all the classic 
tongues. Of little less antiquity is the Tamil, in 
its two dialects. This is the depository of all the 
science, literature, and religion of the land. Here 
is that Hindoo philosophy to which, as to its source, 
the ancient Greek philosophy is traceable. Of Pla- 
to's philosophy it is truly asserted that '4ie made 
the Orient its basis and the Occident its super- 
structure." This mysterious Hindooism hinges on 
many Bible facts and truths at numerous points. 
In its earliest stage it synchronizes with some of 
the remotest events recorded of the postdiluvians, 
embodying many of the characteristics of Abraham, 
Moses, and of ISToah, and those of many other Bible 

worthies. These the archaeologist will trace to their 

30 



352 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

sacred source, and will be amazed to find at tlie 
basis of this system of monstrous error some of the 
great truths revealed from heaven. Among these 
are monotheism, the soul's immortality, the great 
redemption, and the like. But these are so inter- 
mingled and diluted with debasing error, or so con- 
cealed by false metaphysics,^ as to be powerless to 
save, while they impart vitality to the errors which 
debase them. But stereotyped as Hindooism has 
been for many ages, it has internal evidences that 
it was long in a forming state. Vishnu is often 
represented by it as crushing the serpent's head, 
and as being wounded by it— where the allusion is 
direct to the first page of man's moral history ; 
while there are not traces wanting of the apostolic 
agency in that ancient land, showing that centuries 
measured the growth of Hindooism. Your mission- 
aries may exhume these fragmentary truths from 
the rubbish of two thousand years, and appropriate 
them to the great purposes of their mission. But I 
must not terminate these remarks without a few 
utterances to these self-sacrificing missionaries. 

My dear brother and sister: the peculiarity of 
our present meeting is derived, in part, from the 
speed and permanency of our parting, and, in part, 
from the grandeur and solemnity of the object 
which separates us. You have now reached the 
point where your pilgrimage with civilized man 
must terminate. Your departure, though not to 
another planet, is to another continent, where hu- 



A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 353 

manity is all unlike its phases with which you have 
been acquainted. There the rigorous Winter- of 
heathenism has for thirty centuries been congealing 
the moral sympathies of the nations ; there the 
utter perversion of man's noblest powers has been 
almost completed. How far you will be shocked in 
comparing this bright eminence on which the sun 
of revealed light pours its floods, with that dark 
valley on which no beam has fallen, experience must 
declare. In reaching the grand purpose of foreign 
missionaries you have doubtless enumerated the en- 
deared objects you are to leave — the tender associa- 
tions of life's morning — the bright objects which 
your own young affections bathed in their radi- 
ancy. Still, there is a binding unity which is de- 
fiant of both space and duration ; that unity be- 
longs to the system under which we act, to the 
kingdom we promote, and to the agents of our re- 
deeming Sovereign; that unity will be ours after 
thousands of miles shall have divided us. When 
we shall no more hear your voices, or see your 
faces, or listen to the footfall of your returning 
steps — then, when we shall bow at our Christian 
altars, and you kneel amid pagan temples, our 
voices mingling with yours, will, in the highest 
heavens, reach the same ear and the same heart. 

The Church, then, through my lips, would bid 
you go far hence, and, as her messengers, to grap- 
ple with the giant power of idolatry — to face the 
storm and breast the flood — to bravely toil and, if 



354 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

need be^ to die for tlie name of the Lord Jesus. 
And with, one fervent, importunate, and perpetual 
prayer, the Church will ask that his grace may in- 
spire you, and that when the bright array of his 
servants shall homeward return, who have culti- 
vated many a field on the darkest pagan shores — 
that then the stars in your crown may be numerous, 
shining forever and ever to your Master's honor. 
Under the pressure of these mighty claims you will 
not be detained by those numerous voices which 
say, Stay for us. Among these voices is the tender- 
est sound — not from the companions of your youth- 
ful pilgrimage — not from your classmates in school 
or Church — not even from your younger brothers, 
who tearfully say. We shall see our sister no 
more — but from those parental lips which quiver 
in the utterance. There, behind the parents' vale- 
dictory words, lies a depth of emotion which no line 
has measured, which no distance, no duration can 
exhaust; there it glows in its ineffable intensity 
and beauty — through the lapse of years, change of 
manners, loss of fortune, decline of health, and dis- 
tance of place — through all the mutations of time — 
there it glows warm and quenchless as the sun in 
the heavens. There is no love which exceeds it 
but that of the Eedeemer. 

May he who gave his Son to ransom the hea- 
then sustain these parents who give their daughter 
to apply that ransom ! 



XIX. 
THE MISSIONARY WORK: 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE DEPARTURE OF REV. 
P. T. WILSON AS A MISSIONARY TO INDIA. 



Mr. President, — The occasion that has assem- 
bled us is not aimless; it borrows grandeur from 
the object we would promote. This is the third 
occasion within a single term on which our tears 
and triumphs have mingled. The third member 
of our Institute has just uttered his farewell on 
his departure for the same distant field. By this 
threefold cord the ^^ School of the Prophets" will 
long be strongly bound to the mission in India. 
The same great field has been entered by laborers 
from our sister institution of Concord — that brilliant 
'^star in the East." Indeed, the noble superin- 
tendent of that mission acquired his discipline and 
imbibed his divine philanthropy in a kindred in- 
stitution beyond the stormy ocean. Should this 
school — founded by that sainted lady who has 
ascended to a hight from which she can watch 
the field it supplies — continue to furnish mission- 
aries in the same ratio, before the flight of a single 

355 



356 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

century they will occupy a field on wliicli the sun 
of Xature never sets. Ascended sister, never shall 
a commissioned youth pass from our halls to pagan 
shores without making our praises to Him who 
prompted your contribution to his preparation ! 
Should the mysterious laws of departed saints 
permit your scrutiny of what is now passing, we 
bid you hail as a participant in our joy, and as 
the divinely-prompted instrument of this joy! 

x\nd permit me to remind you who are benefi- 
ciaries of this munificence, that in the great mis- 
sion of life sacrifices and honors are commensurate; 
especially is this so in the history of the Christian 
ministry. "When the minister aims at little he ac- 
complishes less; when he sacrifices nothing he wins 
nothing; when he dares to cast away nothing for 
his Master he accomplishes nothing for the race. 
But resigning the whole world, with its wealth 
and wisdom, pride and pleasure, ease and power, 
he writes his name in letters of lio^ht his^h on the 
scroll of sacred honor. So that to lose nothing is 
to gain nothing, and to sacrifice every thing is to 
win every thing. 

When the Macedonian conqueror with his noble 
phalanx landed in xisia he ordered the destruction 
of his fleet, deeming the destruction of his forces 
less calamitous than their cowardly flight. In ac- 
cepting this appointment, my brother, you must 
also cut ofi" all means of retreat from the conflict. 
Like Caesar, having passed the Eubicon, victory or 



THE MISSIONARY WOEK. 357 

defeat is a stern necessity. You are the messenger of 
the Church, through which its great Head says, ^' Be- 
hold, I send thee far hence!" Since the ancient East 
has unbarred its thousand gates to God's heralds, 
the heart of the Church has throbbed for its speedy 
enlightenment. She looks with strained eyes, with 
fervent hope for the apostolic achievements of her 
messengers. Their failure would extort her groans; 
their success kindle her rapture, and accelerate the 
world's moral rescue. You will not regard me as 
placing an extinguisher on your zeal when I advert 
to the twofold aspect in which it is possible to re- 
gard the missionary enterprise. It has a roTnantic 
side and an evangelical side. The poetry of foreign 
missions glows and charms in the incipiency of the 
enterprise. In the weeping farewell of a thousand 
kindred voices, in the wild scenes of an ocean voy- 
age, in the new stars kindled in the canopy of a 
strange heaven which may arch the distant field, 
in the development of hitherto unknown character- 
istics in man as a pagan, in the intense gaze of ten 
thousand eyes fixed on the far-off heroic stranger — 
in these and kindred novelties the most alluring 
charm may be felt. But this romance is only the 
prelude, not the scene to be enacted. No sooner 
does the stern reality of the work become a matter 
of experience than the bow fades from the heavens, 
and its bewitching beauty becomes a sullen blank. 
The reality of your work v/ill be cold, exhaust- 
ing, and revolting. You must first pass that great 



358 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

gulf dividing between your language and that m 
which you are to deliver your message ; you are 
next to master those ancient manners and customs^ 
those peculiar habits of thought and complicated 
superstitions^ which are stereotyped by the indura- 
ting processes of ages; these have choked almost 
every avenue of truth to the heart. 

In spite of all these obstacles, the change to be 
wrought in individual minds is greater than the 
revolution of a kingdom. In the face of these 
sternly-resisting influences — which have accumu- 
lated vigor for thousands of years — your work is 
to reconstruct society on a new substratum. Xor 
is it unfit, my brother, - to premonish you of the 
contrasts between your ministry here emd in hea- 
thendom. Here you sustain to society the relation 
of affinity; there of repugnance. Here the very 
air is redolent, sweetened by fragrance streaming 
from higher worlds; there it is poisoned by the 
odor of superstition, which ages have intensified. 
Here the minister's hope of success is kindled by 
the graciously-quickened state of men's moral sensi- 
bilities; there these susceptibilities have been wast- 
ing for ages under the dreadftil blight of obdurating 
superstition. But in the midst of all these appall- 
ing obstacles you are to labor in hope; because 
you are allied to an agency to which no obstacle 
is insurmountable — an a2;encv involvino; an all-com- 
prehending atonement, an all-embracing proniise of 
its efficiencv, and the unitv of all branches of the 



THE MISSIONARY WORK. 359 

race — an agency proclaimed by ancient promise, 
and described by evangelical history. Though this 
agency may seem slow, still is it sure in its opera- 
tion. The seed you shall sow may require more 
than a Summer for the production of a harvest; 
in the Lord's harvest-field ages may intervene be- 
tween sowing and reaping; but the germinant vi- 
tality of the seed you deposit in pagan soil, like 
that of the wheat in the Egyptian pyramid, may, 
after the lapse of ages, be productive. Watered by 
the sower's tears, and fanned by the Spirit's breath, 
and quickened by the beams of the eternal sun, it 
shall arise in a golden harvest, and finally wave 
before the angelic reapers. And, if not before, 
when the lights of time shall grow dim with age, 
the fruit of your labor, like distant chroniclers, 
shall record your achievements as connected with 
a thousand others who shall have contributed to 
the redemption of India. 

And now, my dear brother, at this parting hour 
we would profoundly feel with you that it is not in 
the distance of place or of time to sunder or even 
weaken the ties of kindred minds. Though these 
are strengthened and brightened by identity of 
habitation and frequency of intercourse, yet what 
is essential to sanctified humanity is defiant of 
mere circumstances, and can appropriate such as 
are most malign to its own elevation. Even the 
distance of time and place may become a medium 

of augmentino; our mutual interest. This mysterious 

31 



360 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

distance, wliicli adheres only to the finite, is power- 
less to extinguish that Christian love whose origin 
and aliment are in the Infinite. Like the atmos- 
phere of the globe, the sympathy of heavenly minds 
binds all to their great center. We shall be apart 
in body, not in mind — in persons, not in purposes. 
On that far-off" shore, where superstition has long 
reigned alone, you will doubtless feel the moral 
chill of a midnight hour upon you. This may 
even intensify wdien your work is done — when you 
shall lie down to die; for then the past becomes 
present, and you will contrast the bright visions 
of this Gospel land with that starless sky which 
canopies those pagan realms. But other visions 
will also open on that hour of transition — as the 
field of your toil had been dark, the heavens that 
open above you shall be bright. Go then, my 
brother, with the blessings of the Church accom- 
panying you, to toil, and sacrifice, and die in that 
same enterprise which brought the great Eestorer 
from the highest heavens. 



XX. 

THE GOSPEL ONLY ADAPTED TO EFFECT MAN'S 
REDEMPTION. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE MISSIONARY SOCI- 
ETY OF LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY. 



Me. Pkesident and Feiends, — The great cause 
of Christian missions which has convened us de- 
rives its importance from the cardinal truths which 
it assumes. Among these are the religious faculty 
of man, the moral blight which has fallen on his 
nature, the sovereign remedy for that disease, the 
universality of man's susceptibility of that remedy, 
and that the living voice of the commissioned her- 
alds is the appointed channel through which it is 
to be applied. That numerous schemes have been 
invented to repair this depredation we are certain. 
We would test their right to the claim by a com- 
mon standard. That, and that only, which proves 
itself fitted to the restoration of the morally fallen 
can endure the test. It must be truthful in all its 
relations to the universe, as those relations are no 
less in harmony than the attributes of the God- 
head — any restoring scheme in conflict with them 
must be spurious. Its apparent adaptation to re- 

361 



362 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

store a part of men and nat all men would either 
be the denial of the unity of the race, or proof of 
its own falsity. Whatever secures the adaptation 
of religion to one man must to all men — whatever 
fits it for one class must for all classes — for one cli- 
mate, can not fail to do it for all climates — for one 
age, for all ages. It must find no invincible ob- 
stacle in the whole range of human history. It 
must be intelligible to the masses because they are 
the masses — the majority. If the mind in its very 
structure requires evidence of what it believes, a 
religion to save it must place its proofs on the low- 
est level of human intelligence. But here you will 
not mistake me by supposing the 'presence of evi- 
dence is the absence of mystery. The evidence of 
Divine truth is seen less in itself than in the mira- 
cles that authenticate it. This is the proof we 
claim for the Gospel you are sending to the hea- 
then, and it is the very proof we deny to all sys- 
tems competing with the Gospel. '' Superstition-" 
is the cognomen of all uninvested with this super- 
natural proof. "We deny it to "Isla^nism/' which 
for ages never pretended to be founded on miracles. 
We deny it to the Papacy, which, as a hierarchal 
scheme, rests on the most monstrous usurpations, 
superseding the highest provisions of Christianity, 
claiming those very prerogatives which it vilifies. 

But is there not an intelligibility in the Chris- 
tian faith when studied merely in its own unvar- 
nished records ? It has a fullness of proof in those 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 363 

facts and principles which have been gathered and 
evolved by the toil and talent of ages ; but it also 
has convincing evidence spread like a sheet of 
light over the face of its records. I will dare to 
ask you what earnest inquirer ever pored over the 
four Gospels without finding the truth of their con- 
tents in the manner of their statements — without 
finding that ineffable truthfulness which, like the 
intuition of sense, has its proof in itself? What 
earnest inquirer ever studied the picture they draw 
of the inner man without the spontaneous exclama- 
tion, This is the very heart which beats in my 
bosom! Indeed, there is not a lesson of this kind 
taught by these Oracles which is not fully corrobo- 
rated by conscience. The lessons they both teach 
on the nature of morality are not many, but the 
same. The same principle underlying God's Ora- 
cles and man's conscience throbs with the pulsations 
of divine life. In the nature of these evidences is 
thus found the adaptation of the scheme to the 
masses of the race. This suggests that other point 
of adaptation which it has to the poor. They, 
being the majority of men, could, by a divinely-re- 
storing system, never be left unprovided for. A 
prophetic characteristic of the Gospel was, it was to 
be preached to the poor. Till this great elevator 
came through the gates of light to uplift humanity, 
what indignity was not done to the poor? — the 
tools of ambition, the instruments of luxury, the 
victims of oppression, the objects of bitter scorn, 



364 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

were they. But Christ had no sooner lighted on 
the globe than the scene changed. By his scheme 
all men were placed on an equal footing in the in- 
herited elements of their nature — all were shown to 
be equally rich in susceptibilities of moral govern- 
ment and of endless bliss in the highest sphere of 
glorified humanity. Had it not thus grouped to- 
gether the entire race, its final failure must have 
been utter. The moral deliverer of this class is 
made a thousand times more welcome by the crush- 
ing burden which had previously pressed upon it. 

Another characteristic of a religion for the race 
must be such as will work out for it mutual rights. 
As the fatherhood of God must involve the brother- 
hood of man, it must recognize the common apos- 
tasy, the common redemption, the common heav- 
enly succor, so that it may be adequate to bestow, 
not equality of circumstantial condition, but an 
equality of human rights. Though these have been 
confounded by the advocates of heathen caste in 
Christian society, their distinctness is too palpable to 
admit of discussion. When the spirit of our Chris- 
tianity has thoroughly permeated the race, then 
will its injunction. Love thy neighbor as thyself, 
become a universal realization. The Christian sys- 
tem regards the domestic and civil institutions 
no less of God than the Church organism; so that 
parental authority and law-enforcing power are 
divine, and Christianity demands, with trumpet 
tongue, that all do that toward others which ''is 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 365 

just and equals Could it sanction oppression it 
would be founded in tyranny, and must flee away 
at the approach of the Great White Throne. But 
its radical principle is a thunderbolt to crush all 
usurpation. 

In characterizing the Gospel which you send to 
the heathen, I must not fail to advert to its re- 
storing provisions. This remedial distinctive is not 
incidental, but fundamental to it. Every heart 
painfully knows that as soon may the shadow for- 
sake the substance as apprehended penalty be apart 
from felt delinquency. If violated government and 
free pardon ever concur without the overthrow of 
authority, redemption must interfere. But whence 
redemption? The solemn echo answers, Whence? 
All voices were silent. The Divine utterances on the 
theme were so shrouded in symbol that it required 
the fulfillment of prophecy to certify its import. 
A clear solution of the enigma was finally made by 
the Eestorer's own mysterious appearance, which 
made it certain that God could be just and the jus- 
tifier of him that believeth in Jesus — that the ends 
of penalty could be answered without the infliction 
of penalty. Because the elements of this stupen- 
dous scheme can be scrutinized only as facts and not 
as connected parts of a measureless whole, this does 
not impair its efficiency, as it is a necessity of lim- 
ited minds grappling with depths beyond them. 
Should it not suffice to know that Jehovah can be 
both just and exorable — that broken law can be up- 



366 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

held witliout the infliction of its penalty — that the 
offender can have impunity Avithoiit becoming auda- 
cious — that justice and pardon can harmonize when 
their cooperation is preceded by repentance? Is it 
not enough to grasp these thrilling facts without 
being able to trace the ethereal connections between 
them ? This redemptive characteristic of Chris- 
tianity clothes it with a grandeur and solitude 
which must forever keep it apart from all other re- 
ligions, and leave it alone adapted to the race. 

Cast a piercing glance at the Papacy, and you 
will see that it virtually rejects these merits by 
making them availing ''only on the ground oi pen- 
ance'' — at Mohammedanism, and you will find that 
expressly rejects them by affirming that God se- 
cretly took Christ to heaven, and that another died 
in his stead, leaving the faithful to be saved through 
their own sufferings. ITor will you find in all the 
modifications of heathenism a shadow of this fun- 
damental redemptive principle. Its whole interces- 
sory provision consists of intermediate demons, not 
furnishing a ground of man's access to God, but 
merely a means of it — not on the Eestorer's 
death, but on the offender's tortures must he rely. 
The extent to which these pacify conscience is pro- 
claimed by the midnight horrors of their bloody 
rites. 

Another characteristic of a universally-applicable 
religion is its intrinsio provision for self-propaga- 
tion. Many a system-maker has theorized beauti- 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 367 

fully on the fittest means morally to elevate the 
race. The arts, social institutions, literature, and 
commerce have all been eulogized as the mighty 
means of man's perfection. Their claim may be 
tested both historically and intrinsically. Indeed, 
in both these regards they have been tested, and 
the failure of the experiment has been complete. 

But the Gospel never enthrones itself in the ex- 
perienced heart without generating the fervid de- 
sire for its universal diffusion. A beam of light 
was never more aggressive in the territory of dark- 
ness than the felt Spirit of Christ in the bosom it 
sways. 

The deistical sympathizers with the Westminster 
Keview — number for 1856 — eulogize missions, from 
a secular stand-point, as the ^' civilizers of savage hu- 
manity.'^ Now, we have no conflict with these 
gentlemen on this question ; we concede the fact 
that missions civilize savages; we mxaintain, with 
the philologist, that they extend the knowledge of 
languages — with the philanthropist, that the school, 
Church, and press vanquish the horrors of pagan- 
ism; but we also maintain, with St. Paul, that the 
Gospel translates men from death to life. How 
shall we characterize these freethinkers, who lavish 
their praise on these legitimate workings of the 
Gospel, and stigmatize the Gospel itself as mere 
superstition — awarding to it the highest power of 
social regeneration, and yet sneering at it ^'as re- 
quiring an easy faith," as though sw^et streams 



368 LECTUEES AXD ADDRESSES. 

could emanate from a bitter fountain ! That theory 
makes the monstrous assumption that polytheism 
may be apart from pollution — that idolatry does not 
necessarily involve degrading vice. Though this is 
in the face of all history, and of innate tendency, 
still is it vital to the theory. It rejects the Gospel 
power to renew the heart, while it proclaims its 
agency to reform the manners, ignoring the fact 
that the absence of virtue is the presence of vice — 
that neutrality in a moral agent is an impossibility. 

Let me challenge the freethinkers of every age to 
identify a single instance of a missionary being sent 
by them to civilize the heathen. Believing, as they 
do, that civilization is the highest boon to man, 
why have they never employed an agency to bestow 
it? This fact betrays a secret want of confidence 
in all reformatory agencies which leave the heart 
unchanged. Well may you confide in that grand 
scheme to improve the lower nature and narrower 
interests of men, which, from generation to genera- 
tion, has poured a flood of purity on the myriads 
of the ransomed. 

But the SUBJECTIVE fitness of the Gospel should 
not escape us. Unlike all other religions, the tend- 
encies of its facts are in harmony with the re- 
quirements of its precepts. These precepts, though 
often most particular, accord with the fundamental 
principles. How nicely it adjusts its claims to our 
sensitive nature, interdicting alike austerity and 
licentiousness, is seen by its utmost avoidance of the 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 369 

opposing extremes. It dwells on tlie Divine moral 
perfections in a manner exactly adapted to raise 
our moral nature to the same elevation, present- 
ing the exercise of his benignity as our model. Its 
relation to human conscience is entirely unique, 
adapted to secure both its activity and tranquil- 
lity, both of which have never coexisted under the 
management of any other system. Christianity 
satisfies our moral sense of justice, which is so 
shocked by the inequality of God's administration 
to society ; showing us that this being the proba- 
tionary and not the retributive state, the law of 
compensation will operate in the life to come. 

The Gospel you send to the heathen indicates its 
claim to deserved universality by its nicely-adjusted 
claims on man's sensitive nature, interdicting alike 
austerity on the one hand and all licentiousness on 
the other. Nor is it a less striking fact in the 
Gospel that it presents moral perfection in God ex- 
actly adapted to raise the moral nature of man to- 
ward the same Divine eminence. To facilitate this 
elevation it embodies the abstract standard of excel- 
lency into practical life, making our ^^ Living Head'' 
our exact pattern. Its peculiarity is no where 
more striking than in its relations to human con- 
science. Its truths are so related to this faculty as 
to secure to it both activity and peace. Many a 
system has given it peace, but it was only in its 
slumbers ; others have roused it to activity, but 
only to inflict torment. The Gospel alone gives it 



370 LECTUEES AND ADDEESSES, 

activity by the overpowering motives to action and 
peace, by its imparted 'purity. The Gospel should 
go to the whole race, because that alone can satisfy 
the moral sense of justice which is so shocked by 
the disorders of society. That alone unvails the 
mystery by pointing to a retributive scene beyond 
this mingled allotment. 

Another characteristic of this divine scheme is, 
it stains man's pride wdiile it kindles his hope. 
Indeed, it sinks him into the deepest humility in 
order that it may excite the loftiest aspirations. 
Among many more kindred distinctions I will only 
name love. To this noblest of all principles the 
Gospel makes its highest appeals. Its foundation — 
the atonement — was laid in love ; the principle on 
which it is propagated is love ; the conquest it is 
to achieve is the extinction of hate; the cement by 
which it w^ill unite the ransomed universe is love. 
What, then, is the conclusion from this objective 
and subjective fitness of the Gospel to regenerate 
the race? Is it possible to doubt the grand aim 
of its mission, or not to feel surprise that its 
friends have not more accelerated its movements 
toward that lofty consummation? 

One palpable inference from all these considera- 
tions is, that if Christian missions fail to save the 
race nothing else can save it. Civilization with all 
its appliances may go forth, like the morning light, 
to pervade the globe, but it can never hush the 
bowlings of sin, remove its frightful deformities, or 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 371 

Ileal the wound of tlie world. This achievement 
belongs to no other agency beneath the heavens 
than Christ's servants, wielding his inspired Word. 
For ages pious lips have inquired, with agonizing 
earnestness, ''What shall be done to make redeem- 
ing provisions availing to the race?" Never was 
the answer less embarrassed than at this moment. 
Doors never before opened to the Gospel are now 
unbarred. Japan, the most highly-civilized of the 
pagan nations, welcomes our missionaries to the 
millions of her people. Central Africa has just 
developed her accessibility to Christian agency. 
The moral wall of China, high as heaven for 
ages, has crumbled; and this change has thrown 
open to the Gospel one-third of our whole race. 
The suppression of the bloody outbreak of India 
has reopened its populous realms to the banished 
servants, to which they are now returning with re- 
kindled hopes. A mighty struggle has fully com- 
menced in the heart of Europe for that freedom 
from Roman superstition which will give the Gospel 
to the States of the Church. 

These are among the signs of the times which 
make no equivocal utterance, but, like a voice from 
heaven, proclaim all things are now ready. What, 
therefore, now remains but for the Church to be- 
come thoroughly imbued, permeated through and 
through, with the living light streaming from its 
eternal Head? Then will it thrust out its com- 
missioned sons glowing in the Redeemer's match- 



372 LECTUKES AND ADDEESSES. 

less love — blending their ten thousand voices to be 
wafted by the breezes of heaven to the ends of the 
earth. As no mind can act for the world's redemp- 
tion by power only as it is in communion with Him 
who redeemed the world by price, this vital inter- 
course is the stern, imperative demand of your 
enterprise. 'No agency out of harmony with the 
living spirit of the Gospel can ever render the 
Gospel aggressive, and nothing but its aggressive- 
ness can ever secure its universality. Is not the 
fact most startling that though this inertly-aggress- 
ive Gospel has operated on the race two thousand 
years, it still leaves seventy thousand every day to 
leap into a pagan's eternity; that it has brought 
only one in twelve under its direct influence; that 
only twenty-two-hundredths of man's vast family 
are swayed by Protestant Christianity? 

The stirring inquiry, then, is this. How shall the 
Church remove this inoperativeness — how shall it 
soonest diffuse this heavenly leaven through the 
whole lump of the race? This can not be done 
by every Christian putting the jubilee trumpet to 
his lips and blowing it through the pagan realms. 
Still has every Christian a part to act in this 
evangelizing process. He can shine by the mild 
and steady light of a pure character; he can accel- 
erate the missionary movement by the bestowment 
of his means; he can act on the most distant shore 
of moral midnight through the highest heavens by 
the power of prayer. Where else is the flame of 



THE GOSPEL ONLY. 373 

true Christian philanthropy kindled but at the altar 
of God? How else can it be fed but by the oil of 
grace; or fanned but by the eternal breath? 

I verily believe that the apathy of the Church 
and the hell of the heathen stand in the order of 
cause and effect, just as do the glowing piety of 
Zion and the spiritual rescue of the nations — as a 
minute application of these principles can only be 
made by a self-application of them. Let each re- 
mind himself that he is a man — that there are a 
thousand millions more like himself — that of all 
this great world's population there is only one in 
twelve like him bathed in the sunlight of the Gos- 
pel — that the other eleven-twelfths are making 
their dreary pilgrimage amid the death- shades of 
moral disease. Does each present exclaim, Then 
what can I do for these imperiled brothers of 
mine? My warning voice can not sound in their 
hearing, the light of my example can not assuage 
their gloom, my utterances of prayer can not reach 
their ears. Can I, then, exert no agency in 
this world-saving work ? The eyes and ears of im- 
mortal man are not the sole avenues of fellow-in- 
fluence. There is not in all the realms of nature 
an object so dear to the heart of God as the rescue 
of his Son's purchase — all the members of his 
Church are the appointed agency. 



XXI. 

THE GOSPEL THE ONLY AGENCY THAT CAN 
ELEVATE THE PAGAN NATIONS: 

A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 



If we are right in regarding Christianity the 
highest style of philanthropy, the Christian should 
seek with the utmost eagerness for the mightiest 
social forces by which man may be elevated. Every 
known force in society has been acting on it for 
ages, so that a comparison of their energy respect- 
ively is now facile. 

Civilization, with its institutions, has been pro- 
posed as the master-means of man's elevation. Civ- 
ilization, whose characteristics are commerce, litera- 
ture, and the arts, is, beyond all question, a price- 
less social boon; but.it is intrinsically unadapted to 
man's highest elevation — unfitted to expand his no- 
blest faculties. It contains not the principle of 
self -"propagation, or the power of inward assimila- 
tion. There may be a tendency, in the course of 
ages, to perfect itself in its own locality, but none 
to transcend its original limits by going abroad on 

missions to perfect humanity. History, it is true, 

32 ' 375 



376 LECTUEES XSD ALDEESSES. 

records of civilization the planting of many a col- 
ony with more elevated institutions than those of 
contiguous communities; but none possessed of that 
moral power which is indwelling and life-giving. 

TThat was the aim of those most ancient colonies 
established by Phoenicia ? Xot even to extend 
civilization, but simply to protect and enlarge the 
commerce of the parent State. For what purpose 
did Greece, at a later period^ send out her vigorous 
colonies in the Asia Minor, and almost to the out- 
limits of ancient civilization in Europe? Xot to 
permeate darker regions by its intenser light, but 
for the double purpose of self-aggrandizement and 
to devolve from itself the crushing burden of its 
own poor. Why did the early Latins plant their 
numerous colonies ? ZSTot to elevate barbarians to a 
higher social level, but merely to establish for- 
tresses on their fi^ontier for the selfish purpose of 
protecting their own State. 

The 2reat modern svstem of colonization has, ^e- 
nerically, the same character — the extension of ter- 
ritory, the multiplication of military posts, the ac- 
quisition of distant points for the exportation of 
their criminals — these and kindred objects have 
been its paramount aim. As witnesses to this hum- 
bling conclusion we might summon Algeria, Aus- 
tralia, Cape Colonies, and many other instances. 
Indeed, we may challenge all history for a single 
colonization enterprise having for its aim man's ele- 
vation. 



THE GOSPEL THE ONLY AGENCY. 377 

' Not civilization but Christianity alone has panted 
and toiled for that holy object. Not your colonies 
but your missionaries are to transform the midnight 
empire of heathendom. 

But I next advert to the claim ur^ed for com- 

o 

7)ierce. This has been regarded the great civilizer 
of mankind. The maps of ancient history show us 
the identity of the centers of civilization and the 
seats of ancient commerce. Such was Babylon on 
the famous plain of Middle Asia, and Tyre on the 
early civilized shore of the Mediterranean. Into 
the one the wealth of nations flowed in a deep, 
perpetual stream ; into the other caravans brought 
treasures of Asia; ships conveyed the tin of Brit- 
ain, the grain of Africa, and the gold of Ophir. 
Egypt, whose exhaustless soil fed nations by her 
cereals, receiving in return their various treasures, 
amazes by the late exhibition of that long- concealed 
fertility which made her the storehouse of Europe. 
But this intimate connection between commerce and 
civilization leaves unchanged the primary object of 
both. History establishes our gloomy conclusion 
that never did a caravan go forth from Greece or 
Phoenicia, or an ancient ship traverse the Mediter- 
ranean Sea for the paramount purpose of elevating 
the degraded or civilizing the barbarous. Indeed, 
most of those early expeditions were characterized 
by those piratical aims which were animated by the 
love of plunder, and were not materially unlike 
those modern expeditions made by the Spanish and 



378 LECTUEES AND ADDRESSES. 

others to the New World. Though the pretensions 
of some of these were pompously religious, the con- 
trolling incentives were commerce, gold, and con- 
quest. Lust, treachery, and tortures, which would 
have shocked the veriest barbarian, attended almost 
every stage of their inhuman career. 

Nor has mere social institutions the powder of as- 
similation to their more exalted character. Of this 
defect an illustration is furnished by their operation 
in conquered India. What have the civil institu- 
tions of England done for the conquered millions 
of Asia ? It is true that in portions of that ancient 
nation are the school, the press, and the Bible; but 
by what agency came they there ? Xot by govern- 
mental institutions, but by Christian agency — by 
missionaries often in the very teeth of Government 
agents. Indeed, we need not leave our own conti- 
nent to find a painful illustration. W^hat has our 
own lofty civilization done to elevate the aboriginal 
inhabitants ? It has given them rum to frenzy 
them, disease to waste them, and the chicanery of 
civilization to enhance their treachery. But have 
they not grants, stipends, and reservations? Have 
they not agricultural schools and the like? True; 
but whence came they ? From Christian sentiment 
which extorted them from the unwillina; hand of 
Government. The assertion is fully authorized that 
they are the Eliots, the Brainerds, and the scores 
of sanctified minds which have succeeded them, that 
gave to the natives of the soil wdiatever now enno- 



THE GOSPEL THE ONLY AGENCY. 379 

blcs them. But is not literature a reliable means 
of human elevation ? That it teuds to extend civ- 
ilization is undoubted, but that it- inaugurates civ- 
ilization is not human experience. Literature can 
flourish in a nation only after art has developed its 
resources; anterior to both the mission of the Gos- 
pel is requisite. 

Civilization alone demands the elaboration of 
centuries. That of Greece, rising through ages, 
culminated under Pericles; that of Eome, after 
the struggle of centuries, reached its acme under 
Augustus. But to impart an immeasurably-higher 
civilization the Gospel demands but a single age. 

The next agency eulogized as 'Hhe great civilizer 
of man" is commerce. That this is a grand me- 
dium of communicating to other nations whatever 
may distinguish a commercial nation is palpable. 
Greece gave this boon to Northern Africa, and 
finally to victorious Eome. Egypt gave to Greece 
its astronomy, its philosophy, and, in part, its pa- 
gan religion. Then, as commerce demands the 
press, and this agency promotes literature and thus 
extends civilization, commerce is in this sense a 
civilizer. But as it can not give what it has not 
to impart — being without innate tendency to ele- 
vate man's moral destiny — the good it accomplishes 
is incidental, not primary. 

The very reverse is true of the Gospel; it there- 
fore challenges all history for a competitor. Into 
what barbarous clime has modern literature entered 



380 LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 

to dispense its treasures ? It has gone abroad to 
acquire, not to dispense ; it has explored the an- 
cient ruins of Athens, Egypt, Italy, to rifle them 
of their monuments of ancient culture, but never to 
impart nobler monuments of modern culture. No; 
it IS not commerce, literature, or diplomacy that civ- 
ilizes the rude and Christianizes the barbarian. Ifc 
is the missionary, with the Book of God in his hand, 
the love of Christ in his heart, and with the apos- 
tolic mission glowing on his lips, that achieves for 
man this moral elevation. It is true that the modern 
commerce, unlike the ancient, does not restrict its 
advantages to the metropolis, but extends them 
through provinces and States ; still this modification 
leaves unmitigated its innate selfishness. This is 
referable to the force of circumstances, not to the 
change of its nature. Of all these agents, there- 
fore, the Christian alone has had for its primary 
aim the elevation of man by opening to him an ave- 
nue to the knowledge of Cod. "Where is there a 
desert so wild over which man roams, in which the 
missionary has not constructed the alphabet, the 
grammar, the lexicon of unwritten savage dialects 
to smooth the path of pagan approach to Christ? 
This was the only agency that first gave the Chris- 
tian press to India, and instituted schools for mill- 
ions of her wild sons. Who can ever forget the 
names of Carey, Marshman, and "Ward, who first 
gave the Bible to the Hindoos, and who inaugu- 
rated in that dark empire schools, colleges, and 



,THE GOSPEL THE ONLY AGENCY. 381 

churches ? Was it not the same Protestant Chris- 
tianity that gave the Book of God and a Chinese- 
English lexicon of it to the hundreds of millions of 
the Celestial Empire, radiating that mighty mass 
of dark humanity ? 

Look to the Pacific Islands, where the most re- 
volting atrocities had obtained for ages, where can- 
nibalism had threatened to desolate whole islands — 
there the same Divine agency wrought a wondrous 
change. A third of a century since a Christian 
youth leaped on the shore of the Henry Islands, 
amid thousands of man-eaters, with merely his 
Bible in his hand. Now these islands ring with 
Christian praises, and annually greet with rapture 
thousands of Bibles, and remit as often two thou- 
sand dollars to the institution that sends them. 
This young missionary wrote in sand, on a board, 
the two words God and Christ. This was the first 
writing ever seen by these islanders. They now 
grasp its far-reaching import, .and are living 
proof that civilization is the legitimate and imme- 
diate off'spring of Christianization. To suppose, 
therefore, that civilization or any of its agencies 
goes forth on the mission of philanthropy to elevate 
the degraded, is inverting the order of cause and 
effect. That great work, to the exclusion of all 
other agencies as primary, belongs to God's Spirit 
working through the utterances of his commissioned 
servants. 

In view, then, of what man is in his mental and 



382 LECTURES AKI> ADDRESSES. 

moral and social constitution — -in view of his origin^ 
his apostasy, his redemption — -in view of the huge 
usurpation of inordinate affection over the nobler 
faculties of our nature, what agency but the great 
redemption can be efficient? What means but the 
everlasting Gospel can propagate it? "We have 
seen that commerce has put in its disclaimer; sci- 
ence has said, it is not in me ; the arts are proved 
insufficient. All these have been more or less in 
operation since the beginning of man's history, and 
no one of them has successfully grappled with the 
giant man of sin. Still, a fearful majority of the 
race is in the deep shades of the second death ; sev- 
enty thousand every day are still leaping into a pa- 
gan's eternity. The only hope of the race is in the 
everlasting Gospel. It relies on the Spirit it has 
planted in the hearts it has won for propagation. 
Having put these hearts into communication with 
its Divine Author, his redeeming enterprise be- 
comes theirs. The mission is aggression ; without 
this its universality is impossible — ^with this it is 
ultimately certain. 

It is not the fault of the Gospel that less than 
one-fourth of the redeemed race has been won to its 
Supreme Author in two thousand years. Though 
in executing his great plans the footsteps of Jeho- 
vah are often not more than one in a century, yet, 
as he has no ends to answer by the continuance of 
sin, it was his pleasure that the Gospel of his Son 
should relume the world with the flood of its light 



THE GOSPEL THE ONLY AGENCY. 383 

ages since. The long postponement of this certain 
event is not referable to the slowness of his provi- 
dence, but to the apathy of the Church. Had the 
living light of the apostolic age never waned in 
its intensity; had its flame burned with equal 
intensity for a few years, the Star of Bethlehem 
would have long since beamed on the outskirts of 
the race. Let, then, the present age compensate 
for the delinquency of past generations; and while 
it thus reflects on priority, let its example kindle 
the zeal of posterity. 



33 



i 



APPENDIX 



CONTAINING 



FUNERAL SERMON AND MEMORIAL SERVICES 



OCCASIONED BY THE 



DEATH OF REV. JOHN DEMPSTER, D. D. 



I. rUiSTEEAL SERIMOK 



n. MEMORIAL SERAaCES: 

1. DU. DEMPSTER AS A MIXISTEE. 

2. DE. DEMPSTEE AS A 31ISSI0]S^AEY 

3. DE. DEMPSTEE AS A STUDENT AND THINKER, 

4. DE. DEMPSTEE AS AX INSTRUCTOE. 

5. DE. DEMPSTEE AS A BIAN OF PEOGRESS. 



FUNERAL SERMON 



PREACHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF REV. 

JOHN DEMPSTER, D. D., AT EVANSTON, ILL., 
/ DECEMBER 1, 1863. 



BY EEV. THOMAS M. EDDY, D. D. 



"My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them 
to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my 
name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not 
found in his lips : he walked with me in peace and equity, and did 
turn many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep 
knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth : for he is the 
messenger of the Lord of hosts." Malachi ii, 5-7. 

The providence convening us hath its own eloquence, 
the hour its own lessons ; the one scarcely needs an ora- 
cle nor the other a teacher. Personally, I feel my place 
should rather be that of a mourner than of the preacher 
of the day. 

This is no ordinary funeral service. We are to lay in 
the grave, ''ashes to ashes and dust to dust," the remains 
of a devoted teacher, a profound student, a thorough in- 
vestigator, a ripe Christian, and an "able minister of the 
New Testament." Solemnity becomes us, for death is a 
great fact ; and yet, with that solemnity should be min- 
gled something of Christian joy, for another has gone 
from the conflicts and sorrows of this to the beatitudes 
and crowns of the upper world. Not enough has Chris- 
tianity been permitted to do for us in mitigating the hor- 



4 APPENDIX. 

rors of death. Too much do we yet symbol it by broken 
columns, inverted flames, and drooping boughs — em- 
blems of mere reason rather than of faith, which teaches 
us that, with the Christian, the column has been com- 
pleted, the 

*' Fire ascending" 

has reached the sun, and that "the tree of life" and the 
"tree of knowledge," rather than willow sad with pend- 
ent bough, are emblems of him who "dies in the Lord." 
Familiar as we are with the 'poetry, we are yet almost un- 
acquainted with the spirit of our own hymn : 

" Weep not for a brother deceased ; 

Our loss is his infinite gain ; 
A soul out of prison released, 

And freed from his bodily chain ; 
With songs let us follow his flight, 

And mount with his spirit above, 
Escaped to the mansions of light. 

And lodged in the Eden of love." 

The ministry of the Word is at once the grandest and 
most difficult work of life : the grandest, in that it re- 
lates to God, is based upon the mystery of the incarna- 
tion — God manifest in the flesh — relates to redemption 
and retribution ; the most difficult, from the dispropor- 
tion between the announcement and the announcer, the 
treasure and its earthen casket — difficult enough to call 
from an apostle's lips the cry, "Who is sufficient for 
these things ?" and yet so glorious in adjustments that 
he also says, "I can do all things through Christ." 

The portion of Scripture I have read is the divine de- 
lineation of Levi, not as the sacrijicer, but as the teacher of 
truth. As a " sacrificer" the priest was a type, not of the 
preacher, but of the Coming One, who was to be at once 
priest, victim, and altar. The Christian preacher offers 



FUNERAL SERMON. O 

no sacrifice for sin, that has been once made, and made 
once for all. But the Levite was also an instructor of the 
people. With much care was he to prepare himself that 
he might "teach the children of Israel all the statutes 
which the Lord hath spoken." During the long captivity 
of Israel a priest came to Bethel " and taught them how 
they should fear the Lord." It is so strongly stated in 
the text as to need no explanation. He is the Lord's 
messenger, his lips are to keep knowledge — religious 
knowledge ; and the people, because of this, are rever- 
ently to "seek the law at his mouth." 

Believing the passage a delineation of the expounder of 
the Divine Will, we have 

I. His official character — "He is the messenger of the 
Lord of hosts." The pastors, to whom the Epistles of 
the Apocalypse were addressed, were called the angels of 
the Churches ; that is, the sent ones, the messengers hear- 
ing their divinely-appointed message. The Master chooses 
those who shall go forth officially to speak in his name. 
Our own Church has maintained a godly jealousy at this 
point. She only consents to examine for license such as 
"think they are moved by the Holy Ghost to preach," 
and all seeking holy orders are met by the searching in- 
terrogatory, "Do you trust that you are inwardly moved 
by the Holy Ghost to take upon you the office of the min- 
istry in the Church of Christ, to serve God for the pro- 
moting of his glory and the edifying of his people?" In 
some form the same question is repeated at each step in 
the ministry ; and so sacredly are her Biblical schools 
guarded, that none can cross their threshold as students 
till the Church has declared that, in her judgment, they 
have a Divine call to preach the Gospel. The Church 
holds that this vocation is of too great honor and respons- 
ibility to be chosen as men may, without blame, choose 



O APPENDIX. 

an ordinary business or profession. It may not be en- 
tered because of honor or emolument, because designated 
thereto by devoted Christian parents, or from ordinary 
desire to be useful ; there must be the inward call, the 
Divine moving, the holy anointing attested to the Church 
by gifts, grace, and usefulness. 

Having this divine designation, he bears an august, 
representative character. He represents the Supreme. 
He is the "messenger" bearing the ineffable Word which 
the people are to seek at his lips. St. Paul claims all 
this when he says, " Now, then, we are embassadors for 
Christ, as though God did beseech you by us ; we pray 
you in Chrisfs stead." It is not claimed that there is 
such a distinction between the man and the messenger, 
that the man may become wholly corrupt and yet lose no 
w^hit of his official authority ; for such an assumption is 
monstrous. Rebels are not to be chosen as embassadors ; 
and if there be treason after the embassadorial commis- 
sion is issued, the crime is doubly hightened. He can not 
remain in rebellion and retain his authority; but the ob- 
ligation it imposed he can not shake off. 

But for him whom the Master designates his "messen- 
ger," though he be lowly among his brethren, though 
humble his parentage, yet has he an official dignity of 
great exaltation. He speaks for God, and his "suffi- 
ciency is of God." He may speak in all lowliness and 
humility, yet the Master saith, " He that heareth you, 
heareth me ; he that despiseth you, despiseth me." 

II. There is a groiqring of ministerial qualifications and 
endowments — "He feared God." This comprehends in- 
ward religion, sincerity of worship, conscientious regard 
for the Divine law, and the realization of Divine super- 
vision. There is no genius however brilliant, there is no 
talent however profound and comprehensive, there is no 



FUNERAL SERMON. 7 

learning however varied and ample, tliere is no eloquence 
however captivating and entrancing, there is no reputa- 
tion however potential which can atone for the want of 
this deep religiousness, this internal' grace, this home 
piety. Without it can there be a ministry of experience, 
the mightiest of human ministries ? How can "treasures " 
be brought up from an unstored heart .? The broken cis- 
tern holds no water. 

There is an exterior life in this ministry. Reputation 
must be kept unsoiled, and yet the minister's is as sensi- 
tive as the eyeball. Only can it be preserved w^hen "the 
law of truth is in his mouth, and iniquity not in his lips." 
He may not retreat to the cloister, or find immunity in 
retirement; for as the Master was sent into the world, 
even so also is his servant sent into the world, into its 
activities and into its temptations. He must lend his 
hand in lifting its burdens, and in the battles which rage 
about him Iris sword must gleam among the foremost, and 
should be second to none in keenness of edge or sureness 
of temper ; and as ever the standard-bearer is marked for 
assault, so must he be. His safety is that "he walk with 
God in truth and equity." 

"His lips should Iceep knowledge ;'' and this I take as 
expressing the student-side of ministerial character. It 
is well that there be thorough reliance upon Divine aid, 
and the minister is assured that it shall be given as needed, 
but it will never be given to take the place of personal 
industry. He is fearfully nigh unto blasphemy who prays 
for the Holy Spirit to aid, not his unavoidable infirmities, 
but his willful ignorance ! Rain and snow come down 
from heaven, the sunshine sends its warmth, but the field 
of the sluggard is still overrun with brambles, and only 
the hand of the diligent maketh rich. 

Knowledge should evei- be in the lips of him who stands 



O APPENDIX. 

np for God. If ever a man should intermeddle with all 
knowledge it is he. If he may, let him he at home in 
the arcana of nature ; let the stars above be so many 
familiar faces looking lovingly upon him ; let the lan- 
guages of the past be so many well-known voices speak- 
ing to him of God in action ; let him be at home amid the 
labyrinths and recesses of the soul's wondrous life ; but, 
above all, let his lips keep the knowledge of the Word of 
God — of that Divine "law which is perfect, converting 
the soul." All true knowledge comes at last reverently 
to the theos logos. Prophets of old — those men before 
whom an unseen Hand rolled up the curtain, hiding to 
all other eyes, however eagerly they sought to see, the 
mysteries of the coming future — "inquired and searched 
diligently" into their revelations. Archbishop Leighton 
says : " They studied to keep the passage open for the 
beams of those Divine revelations to come in at, not to 
have their spirits clogged and stopped by earthly and 
sinful affections, endeavoring for that calm and quiet, 
composed spirit in which the voice of God's Spirit might 
better be heard." Even angels, amid the transcending 
glories of the high empyrean, are students, and "desire 
to look into" the sufferings of the Messiah and the suc- 
ceeding glory. 

Given all we have claimed, how is he to win a revolted 
world? With what trumpet shall he sound the blast of 
resurrection in the ears of men long dead in sin ? Yet 
even for this is he prepared, though not by might nor 
human power — not by acuteness of argument, brilliance 
of rhetoric, or winning song. He has that which can 
Btill that revolt — which can pour persuasion into the dull 
ear of that profound death. He is armed with the cove- 
nant- of mercy through the atonement. He goes with 
the gospel of substitution, the "mystery hid from ages 



FUNEEAL SERMON. 9 

and from generations," by which God can be just and 
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. 

Of each Gospel minister who glories in the Cross is it 
said by the Almighty, **My covenant is with him of life 
and peace." Of life! 

Jesus Christ, who stands between 
Angry Heaven and guilty men, 
Undertakes to buy our peace ; 
Gives the covenant of grace ; 
Eatifies and makes it good ; 
Signs and seals it with his blood. 
Life his healing blood imparts, 
Sprinkled in our peaceful hearts. 

Of peace ! O, depth of mercy! O, great mystery of 
love ! There is pardon for the guilty, though scarlet- 
stained and crimson-hued ! 

" Jesus, our great high-priest, 

Has shed his blood and died ; 
The guilty conscience needs 

No sacrifice beside : 
His precious blood did once atone, 
And now it pleads before the throne." 

III. Here, too, are grouped the results of such a min- 
istry — "Many are turned to righteousness." God's 
messengers have various gifts. Some deal almost ex- 
clusively with argument ; others come with the stern 
thunders of law. Prophets are they, with the sackcloth 
upon them ; and if they stand not on the mountain that 
burnetl with fire, nor speak from amid its blackness, and 
darkness, and tempest, they point to that mountain, and 
with tones startling as its own trumpet they cry, " See 
that ye refuse not him that speaketh ; for if they escaped 
not who refused him that spoke on earth, how much 
more shall ye not escape if ye turn away from him that 
speaketh from heaven !" Others come with sympathetic 



10 APPENDIX. 

tenderness, " beseeching by tlie mercies of God." Well, 
each in his own order; but if each is right with God, 
and comes with that "covenant of life and peace" — 
comes for God, comes for Christ, not for self — it shall 
be seen, by and by, if not now, that "he has turned 
many to righteousness." Such a work is the highest 
in dignity, for it brings the servant into oneness with 
his Lord, who came to seek and save the lost. " They 
that turn many to righteousness shall shine as stars in 
the firmament forever." 

Many! No single sheaf contents the spiritual hus- 
bandman; no single rescue can satisfy the philanthropic 
minister ; no single victory can satisfy the hero minister. 
The Captain of Salvation was made perfect through suf- 
ferings expressly that he might "bring many sons unto 
glory ;" and only have his representatives a Christly 
triumph when many are saved by their agency. 

My brethren, standing in this draped pulpit, and look- 
ing down upon that immovable face, I have utterly failed 
in the rapid exposition of the text if you have not seen 
presented the character of our venerated father. It is his 
picture, drawn by inspiration ; or rather the character it 
embodies was one he diligently and humbly sought to 
attain unto. 

A brief outline of the life, labors, and character of the 
departed befits the occasion. It has been prepared hur- 
riedly, amid official cares which could not be postponed, 
and without the privilege of access to his private papers. 
My principal authorities are the Minutes and General 
Conference Journals, and the retentive memory of his 
bereaved widow. "^ 



••■ Since the deliveiy of the sermon these dates have been carefully 
verified-. 



FUNERAL SERMON. li 

JoHX Dempster was born in the town of Florida, 
Montgomery county, Ne^V York, Jan. 2, 1794, and died 
at the residence of George F. Foster, Esq., in the city of 
Chicago, at eighteen minutes past 11 o'clock, on the 
night of Nov. 28, 1863. Thirty-five days would have 
completed his threescore and ten years. 

In a providential manner he was led to visit a camp 
meeting, where he was brought to a knowledge of the 
Savior. He was at that time eighteen years of age. The 
foundation of his mature 230wer was laid in an early con- 
version ; but for that, would he have built such monu- 
ments for enduring remembrance? It is written, "Them 
that honor me, I will honor." 

The inward call was soon heard. He lifted up his 
eyes, and lo ! in the whitening harvest the laborers were 
few. Modest as he was, and all untrained in the schools, 
the Church discerned his gifts and graces, and ''thrust 
him out." In a few months he was preaching under the 
direction of Kev. Charles Giles, P. E., and a little later 
was admitted into the " Old Genesee" Conference, Then, 
when Conferences were vast, and districts and circuits 
of proportionate size, the itinerancy was a tremendous 
fact, and the slender youth accepted it with all its actual- 
ities. During the first two years he frequently preached 
twenty-one times a week, and this additional to meeting 
the classes ! 

He was sent into Canada, but a brief experience proved 
the climate to be too rigorous for his constitution. He 
passed through the grades of "the regular work," avoid- 
ing no responsibility or labor. Nearly eight years he 
served as presiding elder on the Cayuga and Black Eiver 
districts. The large congregations gathering to the spe- 
cial services of the quarterly meetings of those days called 
out his powers. It was the era of controversy, and he 



12 ' APPENDIX. 

proved liimself an able polemic. Elderly people vet 
speak with enthnsiasm of his sermons of that day, espe- 
cially of some devoted to the Arian and Calvinian con- 
troversies. His keen perception tracked error into its se- 
cret hiding-places ; his touch, like the spear of Ithuriel, 
compelled it to assume its own form, and then to over- 
power it was the work of his resistless Bible-logic. 

His own estimate of the preacher's office appears in an 
address delivered at the opening of the Garrett Biblical 
Institute, in which he said : 

"The sphere assigned to the pulpit is broader and 
brighter than belongs to all other earthly agents. It is 
the voice by which the Church, that Divine organism, 
makes its solemn utterances. It is the channel through 
wdiich that body diftuses its secret streams of life among 
men, like those imponderable agents which pervade the 
firmest substances of nature. While the pulpit radiates 
all the relations of earth, it is the preparation for the 
grave and the lesson of immortality. The might of this 
engine of power in effecting the moral rescue of the race 
could only be appreciated by the calculations of eternity. 
Its ordinary and external workings are no adequate meas- 
ure of the energy seated within. This mysterious force 
has only at times come forth with a majesty before which 
great obstacles have sunk or fled." 

With such an ideal he could not be either a loiterer or 
a superficial student. He sought to carry into the pulpit 
that careful preparation which befits so grave and weighty 
a work ; his words were fitly chosen, his lips kept knowl- 
edge. He magnified the cross, and proclaimed the "cov- 
enant of life and peace." 

The first epoch of his ministry terminated with the 
General Conference of 1836, at which time he was ap- 
pointed to the mission of Buenos Ayres. With his fam- 



FUNERAL SERMON. 13 

ily lie landed at Monte Video on Christmas day, 1836, 
and reached Buenos Ayres the following Wednesday. 
In this mission he spent six years of active, earnest, hon- 
est toil. He returned to the United States, landing at 
New York, July, 1842, where he remained engaged in 
pastoral service till 1845. In May, 1846, he visited En- 
gland as a delegate to the Evangelical Alliance ; and 
after a weary and dangerous voyage reached home in Oc- 
tober. 

We are now brought to the third epoch of his ministry, 
and the one by which he will be known in the history of 
the modern Church. When presiding elder, and assist- 
ing in stationing the preachers, he saw what he considered 
an absolute and pressing necessity for making specific 
provision for the training of young men, who, in the 
judgment of the Church, are called of God to the min- 
istry. To meet this necessity he advocated the establish- 
ment of Biblical schools. His views, though in accord- 
ance with the example of John Wesley himself, met de- 
termined opposition. The Church was moving with great 
vigor in furnishing appliances for education. The chain 
of seminaries, midway between common school and col- 
lege, called into existence by the far-seeing wisdom of 
AVilbur Fisk and his co-laborers, was being strengthened, 
while, in a few chosen centers, capital and effort were 
concentrating on institutions of higher grade. 

The question was asked, " What necessity exists for 
institutions of another grade?" Not a few of the most 
eminent educators of the Church spoke decidedly against 
"professional schools." 

Others looked with jealousy upon the movement — not 
because opposed to a ministry of culture, but because they 
feared it might be a departure from the path indicated for 
our feet by the Head of the Church. They feared the 



14: APPENDIX. 

substitution of a professional for tlie citizen ministry, so 
graciously honored of tlie Lord. The chief paper of the 
Church, then edited by Dr. Bond, was vehement in oppo- 
sition, made in the well-knowii trenchant style and un- 
compromising spirit of that eminent writer. 

Dr. Dempster conferred with Bishop Hedding and others, 
and, assured of their cooperation, went forward, undeterred 
by opposition and unchilled by half- friendship. The be- 
ginning was made in ISTewberry, Yt., in 1845. In 1847 
the school was removed to Concord, X. H., where, in the 
month of April, without money, without endowment, 
without lands, without popular favor, but with strong 
faith in God, and confidence in the future approval of the 
Church, John Dempster, Chas. Adams, and Osmon Cle- 
ander Baker, now an honored bishop, with solemn prayer, 
opened the Methodist Biblical Institute in the house of 
H. Grinnell, Esq, None could c[uestion the heroism of 
the movement, how much soever they might doubt its 
wisdom or possible success. On the 2d of October fol- 
lowing it removed into permanent buildings. Seven years 
were given by Dr. Dempster to that school of the prophets 
as professor, agent, correspondent, etc.; teaching, travel- 
ing, soliciting funds, writing letters, answering questions, 
solving difficulties. There were hours of darkness, there 
were impending calamities, and there were marvelous de- 
liverances. One of these may be mentioned. I have 
alluded to his protracted and tempestuous return voyage 
from England. His letters were storm-bound, and fol- 
lowed instead of preceding him. Among them was one 
from Mr. Stedman, son of a Baptist clergyman. He had 
resided in Buenos Ayres, but had gone to England. T.he 
letter contained a check for one thousand dollars, and 
stated that he had made the disposition of that money 
a subject of special prayer, and had been directed to the 



FUNERAL SERMON. 15 

Biblical Institute at Concord. Said Mrs. Dem^^ster : 
" We fell npon onr knees and united in a joyful thanks- 
giving to our Father for his wonderful goodness." 

He felt that in this work he was called to be a founder 
rather than a finisher, and his eye was westward. In the 
providence of God an "elect lady," Mrs. Garrett, determ- 
ined to consecrate her means to this work of preparatory 
ministerial training, and the founding of a second Biblical 
Institute in the vicinity of the commercial center of the 
young, vigorous North-West. He saw the importance of 
the field, and heartily gave himself to it. On the 26th 
of December, 1854, he and Mrs. Dempster reached Evans- 
ton, and on the 1st of January, 1855, the Garrett Biblical 
Institute was formally opened. It is matter of interest to 
read the report of that day. It had been long looked for. 
The active and eloquent Hinman and the devoted John 
Clark, who had anticipated its coming, had been gathered 
home. David M. Bradley was there, and reported the 
exercises for the Chicago Democrat. James Y. Watson 
was there, sparkling with wit and humor, scintillating 
with poetic beauties, and throwing off his sharp, electric 
sentences. Mrs. Garrett was there, disclaiming all credit, 
and declining to receive any public recognition of her be- 
neficence. Yet of her Dr. Watson did say, when alluding 
to the Institute : "It was planted by the hand of woman. 
The large presence of woman here to-day is significant 
of those dews of woman's heart and eyes by which it is 
always to be watered. The presence of that eminently 
Christian lady, on whom such a deed confers such dis- 
tinction and notoriety, from which she would fain have 
kept it separate forever, shall prevent me from mentioning 
her name. This day it is given to history and to the 
hearts of posterity. Better still, it forms history in 

heaven." 

34 



16 APPENDIX. 

There also was Rev. Thomas Williams, then recently 
from London ; and there was Dr. Dempster ! All these 
have passed away. There are honored men here to-day 
who were then present, whose names I may not mention. 

In his inaugural address on that occasion Dr. Dempster 
took his ground firmly. He reviewed the history of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church bearing wpon ministerial 
education. He proclaimed the wants pressing upon it, 
and its duty in meeting them. I must he permitted to 
give an extract : 

"To the minister it eminently belongs to command the 
relations of the world without and the world within, that 
he may seize upon that bright array of analogies and 
proofs so directly bearing upon his glorious theme. How 
can he disclose that radiancy which nature and revela- 
tion reciprocally shed upon each other, demonstrating 
the identity of their Author ? How can he confront the 
bold rejecter of all religion who puts in the very mouth 
of science the words of blasphemy ? Such dig in the 
earth only to find proof against Him who laid its founda- 
tions. They tower into the heavens to array its suns and 
stars against Him whose breath kindled their fires. This 
malignant skill can be baffled only by a pulpit of life 
and fire. 

" Should depth, acuteness, and compass of thought 
illuminate all other discussions, and be excluded from 
the discussions of the pulpit? If this send forth little 
else than windy declamation, positiVe assertion, and com- 
monplace ideas, what power on earth can protect it 
from scorn and neglect? How tauntingly would it be 
asked whether the Grospel is the friend and the quickener 
of the human intellect ! In the discussion of all other 
topics by other professions, the manly strength is ex- 
hibited in the clearness of reasoning, variety of illustra- 



FUNERAL SERMON. 17 

tion, riclmess of imagery, and felicity of diction. Are 
these — beauty of style and wealth of thonght — out of 
harmony with the sublime theme of the pulj^it ?" 

To this Institute he has given his time and devoted his 
energy. I need not review its history. Its sons are on 
both sides of the globe ; are among the heathen ; in city 
pulpits and amid the hither slopes of the Eocky Mount- 
ains. They are its epistles I 

Yet the venerable Doctor was not satisfied. He desired 
to see the permanent buildings erected, and then to go 
westward and plant a third institute where the roll of the 
Pacific should be the accompaniment to its morning 
prayer and its Sabbath hymns. To that work he pro- 
posed devoting a portion of his property, and within a 
few weeks he designed to sail ; but God called him! We 
have many men of learning, many ministers mighty in 
word and powerful in doctrine ; many whose logic is un- 
answerable, many whose piety is seraphic, but we had but 
one whose honor it was to found the Biblical Schools of 
ou]" Church, and he is not, for God has taken him ! 

It is fitting ere closing the record of his ministerial life 
to refer to him as wehave seen him in our Church coun- 
cils, where he was ever patient, attentive to each duty, 
however small, present at the devotions of the morning, 
and the doxology of the noonday; carefully observant of 
every item of business. He had a seat in the General 
Conference in the sessions of 18:8, 1832, 1836, 1840, 
1848, 1856, 1860, and had been, by a large vote, chosen 
by the Rock River Conference as a delegate to that of 
1864. In this chief council of the Church his voice had 
much weight, and his opinions commanded great respect. 
The General Minutes give the following list of appoint- 
ments : 

1816, St. Lawrence, Lower Canada district; 1817, 



18 APPENDIX. 

Paris, Oneida district; 1818, Watertown, do.; 1819, 
Scipio, Chenango district; 1820, superannuated; 1821, 
Watertown; 1822, do.; 1823, Homer; 1824, Auburn; 
1825, Rochester; 1826, do.; 1827, Cazenovia; 1828, do.; 
1829-32, P. E. Cayuga district, Oneida Conference; 
1833-5, Black River district; 1836-41, missionary to 
Buenos Ayres; 1842, Vestry- Street, New York Confer- 
ence; 1843-4, Mulberry- Street ; 1845, transferred to New 
Hampshire Conference and appointed to the Biblical 
Institute, first at Newbury, Vt., and afterward at Concord, 
N. H.; 1847, transferred to Black River; 1855, trans- 
ferred to Rock River Conference. Since then his ap- 
pointment has been that of Professor in Garrett Biblical 
Institute, at Evanston. 

As a student his habits were methodical. Time with 
him was too precious to be wasted. To the last he arose 
at four in the morning, and till his breakfast hour — six 
o'clock — after his private devotion, he read, studied, and 
took his accustomed morning exercise. After his break- 
fast he was at study till eight o'clock, when his recita- 
tions began, and till near noon he was engaged in the 
Institute. From half-past twelve till two o'clock, P. M., 
he read or wrote, then he gave ten minutes — seldom 
more — to sleep, and resuming study, continued till six ; 
forty-five minutes were given to exercise, and then he 
either wrote or read, or listened to reading by Mrs. D. till 
half-past nine o'clock, when he retired. He made the 
most of time. He shunned no difficulty. He delighted 
in metaphysical research, and had made its controver- 
sies familiar. He grappled with gigantic opposition, he 
pleaded no prescriptive rights against investigation. He 
was ever the courtly knight, with visor down, the cross 
upon his helm, and lance in rest, ready to meet all comers 
who disputed his faith. Not disputatiously, yet deliber- 



FUNEEAL SERMON. 19 

ately he challenged all creeds and demanded their au- 
thority. And this spirit he inculcated upon his students. 
They were expected to be always ready to give to every 
man that asked them a reason, not only for the hope tliat 
was in them, but for the very faith which is its substance. 
Emphatically he was an investigator. How far his literary 
labor has been completed is to be seen. The Church 
has been calling for his treatise on the Will, and it will be 
a serious disappointment if it shall not see the light. 

It was seldom Doctor Dempster would consent to ap- 
pear upon the platform, yet when he did he always com- 
manded attention ; and, while compelled to repress the 
emotional in himself from care to his health, he stirred it 
in others. Many to-day remember his addresses at the 
farewell meeting held for Prof. Goodfellow before his 
departure for South America, the one delivered on the 
occasion of the departure of Rev. James Baume, and the 
missionaiy address at the Conference Anniversary in Free- 
port. We are happy to state that a volume of his ad- 
dresses is now coming through the press. 

Few men have had such strength of loill. It bore him up 
and on through difficulty, kept him calm in opposition, 
and gave him much power over men. So, too, that high 
resolve to live on till his work was completed, kept him 
alive. But for it, he had long since died. Few knew 
that often when conducting difficult examinations, or de- 
livering those carefully-prepaied lectures, he was suffering 
intensely — but no word or sign indicated it. His strong- 
control held in the sensibilities and emotions as Avitli bit 
and curb. In duty, with him to resolve was to execute. 

Dr. Dempster uas a progressive man. He gave words 
of cheer to every true reformer. He sat not in sackcloth 
amid the ashes of the past. Not his voice came with 
sepulchral utterances crying '"'the former days were better 



20 APPENDIX. 

than these." no ! He helieved that onward through 
the ages God would go, and that in spite of hreak and 
tangle the web of trinmph should be woven. He hailed 
each advance, not only for itself, but as the prophecy of 
still better things. 

I should be false to the duty of the hour if I did not 
to-day, standing by the dead form of my venerable friend, 
mention his devotion to the great idea of human freedom. 
How could it have been otherwise, for his head was clear 
and his heart was M^arm ! He had studied the questions 
of freedom and slavery in their various bearings, and 
none could more highly appreciate the one or detest the 
othe]-. In the councils of his Church he was of the num- 
ber who steadily worked and hoped for the removal of the 
vicious interpretation which had been forced upon the 
early antislavery utterance of Methodism. I remember 
seeing him in 1856 in the old State-House of Indiana as 
he arose in the General Conference to address that body. 
He had been seriously ill, and had come from his sick- 
room. His appearance was more deathlike than usual. 
He began, as was his wont, deliberately, but as he pro- 
ceeded, his friends in opposition started — they saw a mas- 
ter of logic, who was deliberately destroying their labor 
of many days. That speech was not answered then, nor 
has it ever been. 

In 1860 it was my lot to participate with him in the 
struggle when victory come. The conflict waxed hot, but 
he remained calmly confident and soberly exultant. One 
of his more recent public acts was to go with Rev. Dr. 
Patton to Washington, bearing to the President of the 
United States the petition of the people of Chicago that 
he, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, would 
issue the Proclamation of Emancipation declaring the 
slaves of rebels free men ! He stood with his colleague 



FUNERAL SERMON. 21 

in that presence and presented that petition. Wlicn the 
Proclamation came he rejoiced earnestly and with thanks- 
giving to God.^ 

At our last Conference he entered heartily into the en- 
thusiasm with which the Report on the State of the Coun- 
tiy was adopted, declaring that its sentiments of freedom 
should "glow in every sunbeam." 

Would that he could have lived till this ** cruel war is 
over," to see what he believed would come, must come, 
the complete and inevitable overthrow of the entire slave 
system ! 

To this it need hardly be added that he was a fervent 



•■■ After mentioning his participation in bearing to Mr. Lincoln the 

petition that be would issue an edict of emancipation, the following 

note was read from Dr. Patton: 

"Chicago, Dec. 1, 1863. 

" Rev. Dr. Eddy — ikfy Dear Bro., — Yesterday the papers announced 
the departure to his rest and reward of our venerated father in the 
ministry, Rev. Dr. Dempster, and to-day we are to commit his earthly 
remains to the tomb. I can not allow the occasion to pass without 
expressing to you the sympathy I feel with his family, my brethren 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the whole Israel of God, in 
this affliction ; for truly he belonged to us all, as a Christian, as a 
minister, as a theological instructor, and as an active friend of suffer- 
ing humanity. No words can tell how deeply my feelings were 
toxiehed by the token of personal and Christian friendship conveyed 
in the invitation of Mrs. Dempster to me to conduct the funeral serv- 
ices at the house. But the fact may be partly explained by the inti- 
macy which grew up between Dr. Dempster a.nd myself on our mission 
to Washington, in September, 1862, to urge the President to issue a 
proclamation of emancipation. Many hours of confidential inter- 
course by day and night, and many precious seasons of prayer for 
that and other objects, drew us together with cords of Christian affec- 
tion which have been strengthening ever since. Seldom has it been 
my privilege to know a man of purer life and more single aim, or to 
meet a minister of more comprehensive views or enlarged sympathies. 
May his mantle fall on some of his surviving brethren ! 

"Yours fraternally, W- W. Patton." 



22 APPENDIX. 

patriot ! His love of country Avas intense and his hatred 
of the rebellion as intense. During his fatal illness he 
listened with great eagerness to the reading of the news 
announcing the recent brilliant victory of General Grant. 

It now becomes ns to enter the holy place of private 
life. He was a husband and father. Four children sur- 
vive, and she who nearly forty years ago became his wife 
remains to tell how strong was the love that bound them ; 
how happy were their relations. Home was enlivened 
often by his witty and genial remarks and reminiscences. 

He was one of the most courteous gentlemen I ever 
knew. It was Sir Charles Grandison under grace. This 
came out in his last illness. His bow was made from his 
death-pillow to all who entered his room or approached 
his bedside. When, on the last night of his illness, his 
old friend, Hon. Judge Goodrich, called upon him, he 
could speak but a few words, yet summoned strength to 
ask in his usual way after his health. When the Judge 
was about to retire he came to the bedside, and said, with 
emotion he could scarcely control, " Good-by, God bless 
you, Dr. Dempster." The already-dying man bowed and 
replied, ''Thank you — thank you." That courtesy was 
in all things — in the recitation- room, in the social circle, 
and amid the collisions of controversy. 

The more sacred subject of his Christian experience 
must not be overlooked. Though there may be all gifts 
and all knowledge, though there be the understanding of 
all mysteries, without the work of grace and the gift of 
love, all is vain. 

I have stated his early conversion. God be praised that 
he did not have to lay the foundations when the beating 
of the final storm came on! 0, no ! He remembered his 
Creator in the days of his youth before the evil days came, 
before the loosening of the silver cord, or the breaking of 



FUNERAL SERMON. 23 

the golden bowl. His was a deep, rich experience full of 
grace and full of glory. Not often did he speak of him- 
self, but his religious status appeared in those prayers so 
full of unction, so full of humble yet holy boldness, so 
full of promise-claiming. It came out in the simple yet 
glorious relations of the class-room. 

Many will remember the last Conference love-feast con- 
ducted by him in Rockford, Sept. 27th. He said that he 
was going to be short, and that he hoped every other 
brother would follow copy. His conversion was stated 
in five sentences — it was at a camp meeting: **A long 
night of struggle was my lot — a night whose darkness 
bordered the world of despair ; but on the rise of the nat- 
ural sun, a new sun arose — the sun of eternity. The 
clouds, the trees, the leaves, the very stems of the trees 
were vocal with music, and I joined the great concert. 
My purpose in half a century has not changed. You all see, 
brethren, that in the case of John Dempster the evening 
shades are lengthening. The day is far spent, the night 
is at hand, but the path is bright beneath my feet, and 
bright beyond. I look for the crown of immortality." 
Such was his recently-embodied statement of his expe- 
rience ; I can add nothing to it. It is itself a psalm 
of life. 

In the remnant of time I may occupy I must speak of 
the close of life. Some of us had marked with much con- 
cern indications for some months that not even Di*. 
Dempster's will could hold up his strength to the old 
mark. He was much worn at the close of the Institute 
year, and communicated to the Board of Trustees his con- 
viction of the necessity of a sea voyage, and informed 
them that if he could obtain leave of absence, he would 
sail for San Francisco about January first. The Board 
concurred in judgment as to the importance of the voyage, 



2i APPENDIX. 

but urgently advised him to anticipate the date of sailing. 
A tumor of long standing had become so distressing that 
its removal by the knife was, in his judgment, necessary 
before undertaking the voyage. He accordingly went to 
Chicago with Mrs. Dempster on the morning of last 
Wednesday — 25th November — and was domiciled in the 
home of Geo. F. Foster, where he received every attention 
Christian kindness could render. The operation was per- 
formed, and it was hoped all would go well ; but it was 
written otherwise. From the prostration he never re- 
covered sufficiently to converse with any freedom — articu- 
lation was difficult. Thursday night was perhaps a time 
of the severest physical suffering, and yet, says Rev. Mr. 
Stoughton, who was with him, "no word or sign of fret- 
fulness or murmuring escaped him, but he had a courteous 
nod and smile for the slightest attention." 

Saturday, P. M., I saw him for the first time, and then 
thought his recovery impossible. It had been the ar- 
rangement that I should return Sabbath morning and 
spend the day with him, but, from the manifest symptoms 
of coming dissolution, I decided to return that night, and 
so promised the venerable sufferer. On leaving him I 
offered an invocation for the Divine blessing upon him, 
to which he responded, audibly, "Amen." 

Do you ask for the closing scene? Wherefore? If 
word were brought us of the death, in battle or otherwise, 
of General Grant, who Avould ask for his dying words as 
proof that he loved his country? That has been an- 
swered by Donelson, by Shiloh, by Vicksburg, and 
echoed from the lofty brow of Lookout Mountain ! Here 
is a veteran who has borne without fear and without 
reproach the banner of the Cross more than fifty years ! 
His record speaks for him. And yet the words of the 
dying patriot are caught up, echoed, and re-echoed — they 



I 



FUNERAL SERMON. 25 

are not needed for his vindication, but they are our in- 
spiration. 

I have said he could scarcely speak, yet in the evening, 
as I entered his room, I heard him mention my name — 
he was asking for me. I came to his side ; he fixed his 
eye upon me, and made several efforts to communicate 
something, but could not. 

His physician was there, and we stepped into an ante- 
room and he told me, tearfully, that the case must be 
fatal, and authorized me to communicate the fact to the 
venerable sufferer, adding, **It can do him no harm." 

His mind was still regnant. The intellect was clear. 
I came to his bedside, and holding his hand said, ''Dr. 
Dempster, I must make a communication which I am 
sure you will receive without agitation." He bowed, 
fixing his eyes calmly upon me. ''Your physician says 
he can do no more, and contrary to all oiir hopes, your 
disease must terminate fatally, and that in a short time." 
No change passed over his face — he looked steadily into 
mine, and when I ceased he bowed. He understood it, 
and was ready. 

After a pause of a few moments I said to him, "Doctor, 
we need no witness to give us assurance, yet we will be 
glad to know if the Rock is beneath your feet?" He 
responded by an affirmative sign, made more expressive 
by the smile upon his features. -t, 

" Shall we say to your children. Doctor, that all is 
bright before you?" He responded, audibly, "Yes," and 
bowed. A little later, when I asked him, "Dr. Dempster, 
shall I say to your students that the doctrine of the atone- 
ment you taught them you find all sufficient now?" His 
response, though made by signs, was emphatic. We 
kneeled in prayer, and at the close of the petitions he re- 
sponded, "Amen." 



26 APPENDIX. 

For an hour or more he seemed to suffer severely, but 
still no sign of fretfulness. His eyes rested frequently, 
and how expressively, and 1 thought pityingly, upon 
Mrs. D. We prayed again that his sufferings might be 
alleviated, and his homeward passage smoothed, and so 
it was. 

There was some time during which he sank gradually, 
yet painlessly and gently. His eyes indicated intelligence 
of what was transpiring around him till within a few 
minutes of his death, when the gleam left them ! At 
eighteen minutes past eleven the head which rested upon 
my breast was that of a lifeless man ! We were w4th our 
dead ! AYe had solemnly committed his parting spirit to 
his Redeemer ! 

So passed John Dempster, the eloquent preacher, the 
missionary laborer, the champion of reform, the mature 
Christian, the devoted husband, the faithful father, the 
constant friend. He is gone ! It seems to me as a 
dream ! 

" Thus did he pass away, yielding his soul 
A joyous thank-offering to him who gave 
That soul to be !" 

We are to bear him to the grave — to the spot he has 
chosen ; but he believed in the resurrection of the body ! 
It was an essential £»f his faith. It is touching to think 
that he chose a burial-place within hearing of his loved 
Biblical Institute ! 

He will be missed in the meetings of the Faculty and 
the recitation rooms ! May the God of providence who 
has so bountifully blessed the Institute, direct in the 
selection of him who shall take the place of the de- 
parted ! 

He will be missed at home ! May the blessing of the 
God of tenderness be with her, who for nearly forty years 



FUNEEAL SERMON. Z( 

hath boen by his side ! In her loneliness may she be 
comforted ! 

May those children — the daughter even now hurrying 
hither — the daughter and the son upon the Pacific, and 
she, who afar is the light in that missionary home, be led 
by the God of their father, and fully trust in that same 
doctrine which made all light to him ! 

Students of the Garrett Biblical Institute, I have in- 
cluded in my remarks his testimony left for you. You 
know what he thought of that atonement, of its suffi- 
ciency, of its preciousness, of its merit. Dying, when all 
else was dropping from beneath him, this was there — 

" A Pvock that could not move." 

0, my youthful brethren, is there any thing to take its 
place as the ground of your trust, or the theme of your 
preaching ! God forbid ! Remember the words that he 
spoke while he was yet present with you ! 

My brethren in the ministry of the Word, our senior 
is gone ! Our Elijah has ascended in his chariot of flame ! 
The bow of our Ulysses we may not bend, yet shall not 
the life of our friend, our brother, our father in the Gospel, 
minister to us instruction? Shall not his life, which was 
the fullness of labor, be our admonition ? New responsi- 
bilities press upon us with the ascension of our seniors. 
God give us grace! It is a glorious, a blessed thing to 
preach the everlasting Gospel ! that, fired by zeal 
from the altar on high, and warned by this sudden de- 
parture, we may move to this great work with more of 
Christly love and greater efficiency than ever before ! 

Leaving the chamber of death that night and hurrying 
homeward, nearing Randolph-street I heard the strains of 
martial music, and then loud hurrahs and shoutings ! 
Coming near I saw a multitude almost wild with excite- 



^8 APPENDIX. 

ment, and in that multitude were visible contending 
emotions. It environed a broken regiment of men who, 
with uniforms weather-stained, and faces bronzed, had 
returned from fields of blood ! That tattered flag was 
tattered because its folds had trembled in the storm of 
battle, and been torn by hurling balls. Bough were those 
men — unshaved, unshorn, and most unpolished in out- 
ward seeming. But they were heroes ! They had rode 
in the thundering charge against blazing batteries and 
w^alls of steel ! They were heroes, and were returning with 
honorable scars ! Therefore that greeting of shout, and 
song, and wild hurrah ! They were friends, who came 
back for a season to homes that had missed them, and 
hearts that had yearned for them ! Therefore there were 
tearful greetings ! Yon army confronting the foe said, 
**A regiment has gone!" Here they said, "A regiment 
has come home !" 

I could but think what a triumph has been won by our 
veteran brother ! He has been in the front of the conflict 
for half a century. About him has been the bursting of 
the storm, but bravely he went forward. He has fought 
his last battle — he has conquered his last foe — he has re- 
ceived his discharge ! We say our friend is gone ; in 
heaven they say lie has come! 

" The spirit, freed, 
Hastens homeward to return : 
Mortals cry — a man is d.ead ! 
Angels sing — a child is born !" 

And I could not forbear to repeat mentally, as standing 
in that clear, cold moonlight and thinking of the greet- 
ing of our venerable leader above, that stanza of Wesley : 

"Born into the world above, 

They our happy brother greet j 



FUNERAL SERMON. 29 

Bear him to the throne of love — 

Place him at the Savior's feet. 
Jesus smiles and says, Well done, 

Good and faithful servant thou ! 
Enter and receive thy crown — 

Reign with me triumphant now!' 

And raethoiight I could see the greeting of Hedding, and 
Clark, and Hinnian, and Watson, and a host of fellow- 
soldiers, as the spirit of their fellow-hero was welcomed 
by the shouts of angels ! 

And was it all a dream ? Goes not the spiritual hero 
to a grander welcome than can await the conqueror on 
earthly battle-fields ? 0, it must be so ; for he that over- 
cometh goes to sit with the Master on his throne, as the 
Master overcame and sits with the Father on his throne ! 

** And now, unto Him that ascended up far above all 
heavens, that he might fill all things, and gave some 
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and 
teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work 
of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 
to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, and maj- 
esty, and dominion, and power, both now and forever! 
Amen." 



30 APPENDIX. 



ISTOTE. 

At the close of the funeral sermon Ret. D. P. Kidder, D. D., 
read the following memorial papers: 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE PREACHERS' MEETING OF CHICAGO. 

Whereas, in the providence of Almighty God, the Rev. John 
Dempster, D. D., has been removed from our midst by death, 
we bow in deep submission and reverence to the will of our 
Heavenly Father in this the great bereavement of ourselves and 
the Church, with which he has been so eminently identified. 

1. Resolved, That in the death of our late and distinguished 
father we recognize the loss to the Church of an accomplished 
gentleman, a devout Christian, and able, eloquent, and efficient 
minister, who for over half a century has adorned her pulpit. 

2. Resolved, That we have recognized in the deceased a pre- 
eminent thinker, who, as a metaphysician, has long ranked 
among the very first scholars and philosophers of his time. 

3. Resolved, That we appreciate his invaluable services as the 
founder, at Concord, New Hampshire, of the first Biblical In- 
stitute under the patronage of our denomination, and in his 
intimate relations with the Garrett Biblical Institute, with which 
he has been connected from its establishment. 

4. Resolved, That as an instructor in these schools of the 
prophets he was in his department without a superior. 

5. Resolved, That we condole with his widow and children in 
their sad bereavement. 

6. Resolved^ That we recommend a memorial meeting to be 
held at the Clark-Street Church, Chicago, on Sabbath evening, 
December 13th. 

7. Resolved, That we gratefully acknowledge the solicitous 
and kind attentions of brother George F. Foster and family 
during the illness of our departed brother. 

H. Bannister, Chairman Com. 
R. L. Collier, Secy. 



MEMOPJAL PAPERS. 31 

MEMORANDUM OF THE ALUMNI OF THE GARRETT BIB- 
LICAL INSTITUTE. 

It is our comactron that the side of our lamented instructor's 
character which revealed his peculiar power is known best by 
the classes he loved and that loved him. 

His great strength made him more than a match for the dit!i- 
culties that confront the student. Where the inspiration of his 
example could not allure, the ine\'itable conclusions of his logic 
forced the student. Thus all were compelled to think. This 
made Dr. Dempster an instructor unsurpassed in developing 
the pupil. 

His great intellect was permeated and clothed with a spirit- 
uality that distinguished his devoted Hfe. 

While his will battled successfully with the temptations of life, 
his faith appropriated the promises of the Savior. 

He excelled as a teacher in the wonderful inspiration of his 
life-work. No real student ever sat a year under his instructions 
without getting clear radical views of the fundamental doctrines 
of Christianity; a calm reverence for the living, working organ- 
ism of the Church he represented; a solemn awe for the dignity 
and responsibility of the Gospel ministry, and an abiding purpose 
to acquire a wide scholarship with which to meet that responsi- 
bility and adorn that ministry. 



' ^ Committee. 

LEY, j 



Rob't Bentley, 



RESOLUTIONS OF THE TRUSTEES AND FACULTY OF THE 

GARRETT BIBLICAL INSTITUTE IN JOINT SESSION, 

CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 30, 1863. 

Whereas^ since the present meeting was appointed, our vener- 
able senior professor and colleague, the Rev, John Dempster, 
D. D., has been summoned away by death, we feel called upon to 
express our devout humiliation under this mournful dispensation 
of Providence, and other sentiments befitting the occasion. 

1. Resolved^ That we shall ever regard it as a peculiar privilege 
to have been associated long and intimately with this eminent 
servant of Christ in the noble work of ministerial education. 



32 APPENDIX. 

2. Resolved^ That we shall cherish with fond and sacred recol- 
lections his pure life, his zealous and eflBcient labors, his unfalter- 
ing energy, and his bright Christian and ministerial example, as 
precious elements of the history of the institution with which we 
are connected. 

3. Besolved, That, in commemoration of his honored name, 
we propose to call the first permanent building to be erected for 
the Garrett Biblical Institute Dempster Hall, and that we invite 
the cooperation of his friends and admirers throughout the Church 
to aid us in making the proposed structure a fitting monument 
to his memory. 

4. Resolved^ That we unite in sentiments of sincere condolence 
with his sur\i\ang widow and children, on account of their great 
and irreparable loss. 



MEMORIAL SERVICES: 



HELD IN THE CLARK-STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH, CHICAGO, ILL., SABBATH EVENING, 

DECEMBER 13, 1863. 



This was an occasion of great interest, indicating tlie Mgh 
regard in which the deceased was held, and the deep appreciation 
of the loss sustained in his death. 

The Rev. E. M. Boring was chairman of the meeting. The 
hymns were read by Rev. J. C. Stoughton, and Rev. Dr. Eddy 
led in prayer. After the introductory exercises the following 
addresses were delivered. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MINISTER. 

BY REV. F. D. HEMENWAY, A. M. 

We meet to-night under the shadow of what we all 
feel to be a public calamity — a calamity to our Institute, 
for it has pleased God to remove from her one whose 
very name was a tower of strength, and whose presence 
was a crown of beauty — a calamity to our common Zion, 
for a stately and polished pillar has been leveled to the 
dust, a voice always eloquent for truth, and humanity, 
and God is hushed in death — a calamity to this com- 
munity, for a prince in our Israel, a leader of the mili- 
tant host, one widely known, worthily distinguished, and 

warmly loved, has been suddenly stricken down. Many 

33 



34 APPENDIX. 

of us feel it to be a personal calamity, for I do not S23eak 
for myself alone when I say it is a privilege, not lightly 
to be prized, ever to have known him, to have enjoyed 
his friendship, and been molded by his influence. 

And I come before you rather as a deep and sincere 
mourner, than with any hope of delineating the character 
of the eminent dead. I come to lay on his memory the 
ti'ibute of my heart rather than the unworthy offering of 
my intellect. I stand to tell you not how much I ad- 
mired him, but how truly and warmly I loved him. I 
feel that I do no injustice to the living when I say that 
there are regards in which Dr. Dempster stood alone in 
my affection, as he now stands and must ever stand alone 
in my memory. 

It is no part of the duty assigned me, in these sad 
solemnities, to relate the history or to sketch the general 
character of him to whose memory these services are 
devoted. It is not for me to speak of his genius ; his 
varied and extraordinary attainments ; his unsurpassed 
industry ; his rigid parsimony of time ; his steady in- 
clination toward whatever might improve the condition, 
elevate the character, and promote the efficiency of that 
Church in which he was a happy member and honored 
minister for fifty years ; the simplicity and modesty with 
which he bore the distinguished honors so worthily con- 
ferred on him ; that uniform courtesy of demeanor and 
kindliness of heart which made him more than welcome 
in every circle. Nay, I do not stand here to praise him, 
though if this were my office never again might I find 
materials so rich. 

My assignment requires me to speak of Dr. Dempster 
AS A Christian Mixister, I have it deeply to regret 
that this task has not fallen to one accustomed to hear 
the rich and glowing utterances that fell from his lips in 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MINISTER. 35 

the days of his earlier ministry, before, by tlie decline of 
his physical vigor and the abstruseness of his studies, the 
power he once wielded over the masses had in any meas- 
ure passed away. Or if it might not be so, I could w4sh 
the lateness of my invitation to bear part in these serv- 
ices, and the pressing nature of my subsequent engage- 
ments had not precluded the possibility of my conferring 
freely and extensively with the few among us who sat 
under his ministry in his palmy days, before the fervor 
and force of his eloquence had in any measure abated. 
But as even this might not be, I must to-night assist my- 
self by the reports I have many times had from those thus 
favored, but must rely mainly on my personal experiences 
covering twelve years of acquaintance Avith him, and my 
somewhat intimate knowledge of his personal habits and 
characteristics. 

A full representation of Dr. Dempster as a minister 
would be a complete picture of Dr. Dempster as a man, 
for he was nothing if not a minister. Here is the key- 
note to his whole character, the focal point on which all 
the faculties of his nature shed their converging light ; or 
rather it is the central sun holding all his powers in a 
rigid and beautiful order, and continually pouring over 
the whole a baptismal glory. Unlike some, his absence 
from the pastoral work, the ordinary and regular function 
of the ministry, does not indicate any lack of interest in 
that work, or any want of devotion to it ; but rather it 
shoAved how deep was that interest, how intense and all- 
absorbing that devotion. He was the diligent and suc- 
cessful student, the acute and profound thinker, the emi- 
nent philosopher and divine, the patient, laborious, and 
self-sacrificing instructor, because, and only because, he 
was in his deepest soul — his inmost life, a Christian min- 
ister, "separated unto the Gospel of God." 



36 APPENDIX. 

In analyzing his ministerial character I find : 
L Unswerving Christian devotedness. I never shall forget, 
and I trust I never may lose the thrill that passed through 
my soul on an occasion near my first acquaintance with the 
Doctor. For a special purpose he had put into my hands 
one of his books — an old volume bearing the marks of his 
frequent removals and of the fires and floods through 
which it had passed ; but it was the label that attracted 
my notice. It was a plain label, exhibiting no affectation 
of family pride, no assumption of personal distinction, but 
bearing simply the name "John Dempster,'^ and then the 
motto '^vota mea vita — my life is vowed.'''' I felt like one 
who had been guided by his angel to a pearl of inestima- 
ble worth. I saw at once the secret of that sublime life. 
I caught a glimpse of the eternal granite on which that 
massive character so firmly rested. In this single sen- 
tence, as I at once felt, and a better subsequent acquaint- 
ance has only confirmed the impression, we have the man. 
There was in him a controlling conviction that he be- 
longed to God; **to glorify God was his aim, to f^peak 
for God his message, to exhibit God his life." He owned 
one master-purpose, one consuming passion, that swal- 
lowed up every meaner impulse and unworthy ambition. 
He had prayerfully, and, as he believed, under the direc- 
tion of the Infinite Spirit, adopted a life-plan ; and no' 
difficulty, no danger, no defeat, no disaster could cause 
him to swerve from it a hair-breadth. Having selected 
his position he maintained it with rock-like firmness. 
Against him the storms beat and the waves dashed 
in vain. 

Here is the divine secret of his eminently-successful 
career. He was strong because he felt himself linked to 
Omnipotence ; he was great because the idea of God had 
lodged deeply in his soul ; he was earnest because eternal 



DR. DEMrSTEE, AS A MINISTER. 37 

motives wore continually urging him on ; he was girded 
of God for his important mission. 

As a second factor of his character as a minister, I 
mention — 

II. His high estimate of the Pastoral Office. This was 
indicated in no doubtful manner. 

1. By the general preparation he sought for his woik. 
This was of the most varied and thorough character. 

His plans of study, early formed and rigidly adhered to 
during a ministerial life spanning half a century, were 
most comprehensive. He sought, so far as possible, liter- 
ally to intermeddle with all knowledge. His general 
acquaintance v/ith classical literature, with the sacred 
tongues of the original Scriptures, with several modern 
languages, and the various branches of physical science, 
if not in all instances so accurate as might be gained 
in the schools, was yet respectable, and, in view of 
the disabilities under which he labored, truly remark- 
able. In general history, and especially the history of the 
Church, he was the peer of any man who had not made 
this the subject of exclusive and life-long study. In the 
departments of metaphysics and theology he was prob- 
ably equal, if not superior, to any other man in American 
Methodism. And when it is remembered that he had 
done this Avork as a minister, and with exclusive reference 
to his ministerial vocation — that he was only seeking to 
bring from the dead and the living, the past and the 
present, physics and metaphysics, the natural and the 
supernatural, strength and resources for one work — then 
does his estimate of the importance of that work stand 
out before us in solitary grandeur. 

2. The special proposition he made for the services of 
the sanctuary was equally thorough. No man, certainly 
in these later years, ever heard him preach a sermon that 



38 " APPENDIX. 

beti'ayed loose and careless preparation. Though his 
mode of delivery was usually extemporaneous, yet his 
preparation seemed not unfrequently to extend even to 
the language. Indeed, some of his sermons were so terse, 
compact, and profound, as to be more suitable to hold a 
place in a theological treatise than to be used as addresses 
to a popular assembly. And here was a secret of his loss 
of pulpit power in his later life. He did not address 
the masses so much as the select few. The labor it cost 
to follow him and understand him, and the unwilling- 
ness that too many feel to pay the price of intense and 
protracted attention, as they sit under the ministry of the 
Word, is the reason why some heard him indifferently. 

His texts were carefully chosen, and frequently sug- 
gested, in a very striking and beautiful manner, the pre- 
cise train of thought intended. The first sermon I ever 
heard from him, and one of the best I ever heard from 
any man, was on the Atonement, and from this text — 
"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and 
peace have kissed each other." I have heard him preach 
on conscience from — "If our heart condemn us, God is 
greater than our hearts and knovveth all things ;" on 
spiritual liberty, from — "If the Son make us free, we 
shall be free indeed;" on heaven, from — "And there 
shall be no night there;" on the nature of sin, from — 
"The wages of sin is death." These are specimens taken 
wholly at random and from his ordinary discourses, but 
they will suffice to illustrate the kind of texts he was 
in the habit of using. 

I have thus far spoken of his general character as a 
minister. I may not long dwell on — 

III. His Special Characteristics in this WorTc. 

1. He was loyal to th3 truth. 

That question of Pilate, though urged not in Pilate's 



DR. DEMrSTER AS A MINISTER. 39 

skeptical spirit, was ever with liim the first question. 
"What is truth?" was written in lines of calm thought- 
fulness on his very brow. I could not conceive of his 
asking in reference to his public ministrations merely, 
What will please ? what will produce a sensation ? 
Avhat will secure popular applause? but, What is God's 
message to this congregation ? what is right and true ? 
and tliis being answered in his own conviction, he would 
maintain it though the heavens should fall. 

2. He was spiritual. 

Though his sermons were evidently doctrinal, yet he 
never presented the doctrines as "cold, naked, and angry 
propositions." He spoke as one who had evidently a 
deep experience of the things of God — -as one who had 
tasted in his own soul the joys of that heaven to which 
he would allure us, and felt some of the pains of that hell 
from which he sought to deter us. Hence his words 
were uttered with an earnestness and pathos that were 
sometimes irresistible. 

3. He was Methodistic. 

Though not narrow in his views or feelings, yet his 
character bore the peculiar stamp of our own denomina- 
tion. In the doctrines he presented, in the fervor and 
force of his eloquence, and in the type of spiritual experi- 
ence he held up, he was a genuine Methodist preacher. 
He was so by intelligent conviction and deep and precious 
experience. An anecdote I once had from his own lips 
may illustrate this : 

When first stationed in Rochester, N. Y., he received 
an early call from a prominent Episcopalian clergyman, 
then resident in that city. In the course of the conversa- 
tion he remarked, "Mr. Dempster, I am glad to welcome 
you to our city. Some of your preachers here have been 

somewhat tinged with fanaticism, but from what I have 

a 6 



40 APPENDIX. 

heard of you, I am sure you will countenance no sucli 
proceedings." Said Dr, Dempster, "You have entirely 
mistaken my character, sir. If I understand your use of 
the term, I am one of the most fanatical men on the foot- 
stool; and I intend to do all in my power to promote 
such fanaticism in this city," And he Avas successful ; 
for there commenced under his ministry there such a 
gracious visitation as was never known besides in the 
history of that city ; the blessed fruits of which are scat- 
tered far and wide. 

4. He sometimes exhibited a rare felicity of style. 
His general style was not perfect ; it was too stiff and 
artificial ; but he had single sentences and passages that 
were perfect gems. He frequently seemed to make "truth 
visible in the form of beauty." He had the peculiarity 
of giving a single sentence a sword-like sharpness, causing 
it to pierce to the very center of the soul. *' Better arm 
against you," said he, at the close of a sermon on con- 
science, "every devil in hell than to make your oivn con- 
science your enemy. '^ In the peroration of a sermon, in 
w^hich he had set forth with rare ability the internal evi- 
dence of Christianity, he exclaimed, and with that peculiar 
emphasis which he alone could give, "If those Galileans 
could invent such a religion as this, they could light ivp a 
new star in the heavens." 

5. He was sometimes overwhelmingly eloquent. Not 
so frequently in these later years, and yet even we have 
not been without some glimpses of his rare pulpit power. 
It is not long since I heard a highly-intelligent lady, who 
has been accustomed to hear him from time to time, re- 
mark, " I hear no man preach who stirs me so profoundly 
as Dr. Dempster." Said one of our best and ablest men, 
who heard him preach many times in a revival that oc- 
cu'.Tcd at Evanston shortly after the Doctor made his 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MINISTER. 41 

residence there, " His sermons were among the most 
solemn and powerful I ever heard." 

6. In the devotional part of the minister's work he 
was preeminent. I have heard many men pray, bnt 
no man like Dr. Dempster. In the fitness of his terms, 
the felicitous turns of expression, the delicate gleams of 
imagery, the vigor and comprehensiveness of the thought 
expressed, and, above all, the fervor, the unction, the 
rapt inspiration of his style, he was most remarkable. 
The Holy Ghost seemed to flow forth in his utterances. 
Often have his prayers seemed to me to combine the 
fervor of Peter, the faith of Paul, the spirituality of 
John, and the inspired beauty of Isaiah; and, mingled 
with all, such childlike simplicity and such a holy unc- 
tion as to make us feel that he was in the moment in- 
spired for that work. 

Not soon will the echoes of that pleading voice utterly 
die away on the ear of my memory : never, I trust, will 
those holy impressions leave my heart. 

My final remark bears on his character as pastor rather 
than preacher. I will not sit down without refening to — 

ly. JHis Chrifitlan Courtesy. 

On this point I have a special right to speak. The 
peculiar and delicate character of my relations to him is 
my full w^arrant. For two years I was under him as a 
student, and for several years as a subordinate teacher ; 
and during these years of intercourse with him in such 
relations — relations that would be almost sure to bring 
into view the unamiable side of a man's character, if 
such a side there was — I can recall no instance of an un- 
necessary wound to my feelings ; not a single exhibition 
of infirmity of temper ; no harsh, or careless, or unfeel- 
ing word ; but always the most tender regard for the 
rights, interests, convictions, and even prejudices of those 



42 APPENDIX. 

with whom he had to do. The sweetness of his temper, 
his perfect self-control, the affabilit}^ of his naanners, his 
rare conversational powers, and keen and ready wit, made 
him a favorite in every circle. Such a man, combining 
eminent social qualities with vigor of character and rigid 
regularity of life, and at the same time evincing such zeal 
and devotedness in the cause of Christ, must have had 
the highest qualifications for the pastoral office. The 
very substance and spirit of his life would be to all the 
most eloquent invitation to the calm peace in which he 
seemed perpetually to abide. 

Such was Dr. Dempster, as I have seen him. Such 
was the sublime life which is now lost to our view in the 
heavens. Noble man ! may God bring us again to your 
blessed company ! 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MISSIONARY. 

BY EEV. D. P. KIDDER, D. D. 

I RECOGNIZE my call to treat this particular topic on the 
present occasion, to have arisen from the circumstance that 
a quarter of a century ago our departed friend and myself 
were fellow-laborers in the mission field on the shores of 
South America. It is true that we were more than a thou- 
sand miles apart, and had never seen each other's face ; 
yet we were ministers of the same Church and represent- 
atives of the same Society, and although stationed sever- 
ally in the capitals of two different nations, speaking dif- 
ferent languages, nevertheless we were toiling for the same 
glorious object, the salvation of the world. 

Before entering specifically upon my topic, and as a 
pertinent but somewhat indirect introduction, I must be 
permitted to give a few reminiscences of Dr. Dempster as 



Bll. DEMrSTER AS A MISSIONARY. 43 

a pastor, a topic not assigned to any one this evening. 
In the years 1826 and 1827 he was stationed in Rochester, 
N. Y. It was at an early period in the history of the 
city, and his labors were blessed with an extraordinary 
manifestation of the Divine Spirit. A revival occurred 
which had not only enlarged greatly the borders of our 
own Church, but had extended to other Churches, and 
thus practically baptized the foundations of the new city 
in the name of Christ. To this day the influence of that 
revival is felt in the religious character of Rochester, and 
there yet linger among its older inhabitants those who re- 
member brother Dempster as an apostle of Christianity in 
earnest. Not only there, but scattered in various parts of 
the land, are persons who cherish similar memories. I 
have met them in the great metropolis, in Chicago, and in 
^various places among the cities and prairies of the North- 
West. 

Ten years later, in 1836-7, it was my lot to succeed 
him in the same field, and to enter upon labors in which 
his influence was still visible, and to mingle in scenes 
where his name was still familiar as that of a faithful and 
zealous minister of the Gospel. I there first learned to re- 
spect and honor him, and the one impression made upon 
my mind by what I heard and saw of his influence was, 
that he Avas, in a broad sense, a model pastor. 

It was in 1836, the year of my own appointment to 
Rochester, that the subject of our reminiscences sailed as 
a missionary to Buenos Ayres, and I recollect commend- 
ing the fact to the attention of the children of that city in 
an address on the text, "There was a man sent from God 
whose name was John." The object of the address was 
to present an instructive parallel between John the Bap- 
tist and their former pastor, who had now gone as a har- 
binger of Christ to the Southern Hcmisjihere. 



44 APPENDIX. 

Whoever has given attention to the history of missions 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church will have noted the 
decade from 1830 to 1840 as a period of great increase in 
the missionary spirit and great progress in the missionary 
work. Prior to that period our missions had been con- 
fined to domestic fields and the aboriginal tribes of our 
own continent. 

In 1832 the mission to Liberia was established ; in 
1834 that to Oregon. In 1835 F. E. Pitts, of Tennessee, 
had been sent out to ascertain what openings there might 
be on the eastern coast of South Amei-ica. He returned 
in the Spring of 1836 and made his report at the General 
Conference held that year in Cincinnati, in favor of estab- 
lishing missions at Eio de Janeiro and Buenos Ayres. 
The Church acted promptly. Justin Spaulding was very 
soon sent out to Rio, and in the Autumn of the same year 
John Dempster sailed for Buenos Ayres. His passage was 
long and wearisome, but, by reembarkation at Rio, was at 
length accomplished in safety. 

The work upon which he entered was one of delicacy and 
difficulty. It was a very different thing to make a flying 
visit as Mr. Pitts had done, and enjoy for a few weeks the 
hospitalities and politeness of the merchants, from going, 
as did Mr. Dempster, to make a permanent establishment 
of the Church. Few persons who have always lived in 
Protestant countries and under the toleration granted and 
guaranteed by Protestant laws, can form any just idea of 
the embarrassments and obstacles that hedge up the way 
of a Protestant missionary entering upon his work in a 
Roman Catholic country. Not only have indifference 
and contempt to be encountered, but covert and open op- 
position in unnumbered forms. 

Mr. Dempster found to his surprise that laws existed in 
the Argentine Republic prohibiting him from even preach- 



1)11. LEMPSTER AS A MISSIONARY. 45 

ing a sermon witliout a special license from the Govern- 
ment, Months were occupied in passing through the te- 
dious formalities required to secure such a license ; hut it 
was secured at length. No suitable edifice being available 
in which to unfold his message, it became necessary to hire 
rooms in which to preach, and this w^as done during the 
whole period of his residence there. This circumstance 
prompted Mr. D. to take measures for the erection of a 
Methodist Episcopal church in Buenos Ayres, which was, 
after no small effort, provided for, partly by subscriptions on 
the spot and partly by an appropriation from the Missionary 
Board. But tedious delays occurred in its erection. The 
country was in an unsettled state, and having become in- 
volved in a difficulty Avith France, the latter nation 
J^lockaded the River La Plata and the port of Buenos 
Ayres for more than two years continuously. Hence 
business was stagnated and the church not ccy;npleted till 
after Mr. D. returned home. Nevertheless he toiled on, 
diligently and hopefully, laying foundations for the fu- 
ture. He gathered a congregation of North Americans, 
English, Scotch, and other English-speaking people, to 
w^hom he preached regularly, and among whom the Word 
of God was glorified in the awakening and conversion of 
souls. He opened a Sabbath school, and also a school 
for general instruction in the English language, sending 
to the United States for teachers of the latter. 

I am fortunate in being able to introduce at this point 
some extracts from my own files of correspondence for the 
years 1838-40, which give brief but graphic views of the 
circumstances of the mission at Buenos Ayres. The first is 
from a letter written by the Rev. J. Dempster, Oct. 13, 1838 : 
** Our condition here has been one of accumulating un- 
pleasantness and peril for almost seven months past. 
Such has been the current of public events as to leave 



46 APPENDIX. 

dormant scarcely any bad passion of human nature. 
Want has pinched hundreds of this people, and woes of 
many descriptions have howled through the city. The 
French affair appears now near a crisis, but it is still un- 
certain whether it will die away into peace or result in a 
bloody war : the latter seems the most probable issue. 
Should this be the case great political changes will 
doubtless take place which will tend greatly to enlarge 
the field of moral and spiritual enterprise. At present 
we are permitted to act directl}^ oiily on the foreign popu- 
lation ; but shonld the power of the present party perish, 
access would doubtless be had to the mass of the natives. 
I am giving some attention to the Spanish language, so 
that in the event legal obstacles should be speedily re- 
moved we may enter immediately upon the high, ultimate 
objects of this mission. The intense solicitude is scarce 
conceivable which these thrilling prospects awaken. We 
hope to commence onr chapel so soon as the conflicting 
elements shall sink into a calm." 

During the following month Mr. Hiram A. Wilson, 
the first teacher of the mission, arrived out. He wrote, 
under date of November 20, 1838 ." " I find every thing 
connected with this mission, so far as I have been able 
to learn, in a very prosperous condition, considering the 
present state of the city. The chapel is crowded on the 
Sabbath, and the Sunday school, of about forty scholars, 
is well managed. The Church class contains fourteen 
members. A lot of land is about contracted for on. 
which to erect a church, and the timber for the same 
is already sent for to the United States. The French 
blockade still continues, and how much longer it will 
continue it is impossible to say. The French have pub- 
lished what they call their ultimatum, which is rejected 
hi toto by this Government. I find that Rosas is ex- 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MISSIONARY. 47 

tremely popular in the city, anl is said to be among 
his military forces. His power is now nnlimitod, and 
any person suspected of being an enemy of the existing 
Government is immediately shot, without mercy, judge, 
or jury." The same letter adds : *' I did not find brother 
Dempster in the city, and I am indeed very sorry to be 
obliged to say to you that he is in a most miserable state 
of health. He has been absent from the city about four 
weeks, staying with a friend thirty-six miles distant in 
the country." 

Under date of December 14, 1838, the teacher writes : 
"Brother Dempster came from Montevideo yesterday, 
having visited that place for the purpose of ascertaining 
^the present prospects for establishing a mission in that 
city. Montevideo is the capital of the Banda Oriental, 
a neighboring Spanish republic. His i-eport is most 
favorable ; so much so that he has already written to 
the Board for a man to be sent to that place — one who 
will teach a school during the week and preach on the 
Sabbath. A very respectable congregation can be ob- 
tained now, and a school of thirty-five scholars obtained 
without difficulty. Tlie Government is well disposed 
toward the establishment of a mission, and we see no 
reason why the opening is not a favorable one, and the 
attempt likely to succeed. May God speed the glorious 
work till every city and village in all this dark and be- 
nighted land shall receive the Gospel, and learn its saving- 
effects ! 

" We have just received this evening an answer from 
the Governor of Buenos Ayres, in reply to a request 
which we made a few days since to be authorized to 
build a chapel. It is favorable. ' Vloe la Federacion.' 
Brother Dempster's health is still very poor — so much 
80 that he is by no means able to officiate in the chapel. 



48 APPENDIX. 

nor does lie attempt it. He preaclied, however, at Monte- 
video last Sabbath, the first time in nearly two months. 
He is now in the city with ns, but will retire to the camps 
in a few days." 

These allusions to brother Dempster's health are copied 
to illustrate what a protracted struggle our departed friend 
maintained with disease. Those who have only known 
him in advanced life have attributed his apparent feeble- 
ness to old age ; whereas his health was better in old age 
than in middle life. It was, moreover, in this determined 
struggle with bodily infirmities, as well as surrounding 
and confronting obstacles, that he exhibited that most 
essential characteristic of a successful missionary — per- 
severance against difficulties. 

The teacher associated with him partook of the same 
spirit. For two weeks after opening his school he had 
but two scholars ; but, toiling hopefully on, he was en- 
abled to write in January, 1840: "My school at present 
consists of about eir/hty, of both sexes and of all ages- — 
Creoles, English, Germans, French, Irish, and Scotch." 
Every letter throughout this entire correspondence speaks 
of the relentless blockade as still continuing. The only 
means of communication with the outer world was through 
the British mail-packets and neutral men-of-war. In the 
early part of the year 1840 brother Dempster visited the 
Fnited States, and attended the General Conference held 
that year in Baltimore. He subseciuently returned to his 
mission, and resumed his labors with somewhat recruited 
health. He was laboring on diligently, having secured 
the partial completion of the chapel, and hoping for in- 
creased facilities, as the blockade was at length about to 
be raised, when the Missionary Board, after a period of 
great financial revulsions, deemed it necessary to curtail 
its operations, and called him home. He arrived in Xew 



DR. DEAIP3TER AS A MISSIONARY. 49 

York in 1842, and imraediate]y entered upon the pastoral 
woi-k in tine Vestry- Street Cluirch. 

But the cause which he liad labored to establish in 
Buenos Ayres had then obtained so firm a foothold that 
the people would not consent to a withdrawal of the 
mission. They pledged themselves to raise one thousand 
dollars per annum for its support in continuance. And 
by their perseverance, and the cooperation of Dr. Demp- 
ster's successors, it has not only been kept up to this day, 
but has the present year received enlargement by the ap- 
pointment of a second missionary to aid in extending 
the Gospel to the interior. 

It is a striking and happy coincidence that a son-in-law 
^and daughter of Dr. Dempster, the Rev. W. Goodfellow 
and wife, are now laboring successfully in the mission 
founded by their honored father, twenty-seven years ago. 

As a missionary. Dr. Dempster manifested the same 
traits of character for which he was distinguished in other 
walks of life, but which were found well adapted to that 
peculiar vocation. 

1. A disposition to shrink from no danger or incon- 
venience when the cause of Christ might be promoted by 
his efforts. 

2. A readiness to see and improve opportunities of use- 
fulness of every kind. This was illustrated by his pro- 
vision for schools of secular instruction as an auxiliary 
means of evangelization. 

3. Perseverance under serere physical affliction, and 
against discouraging outward circumstances. 

4. A determination to turn life to the largest and best 
account, both in great undertakings and in scrupulously 
redeeming his moments. 

While in South America he kept up his literary dili- 
gence, learning the Spanish language, and writing articles 



50 APPENDIX. 

for the Quarterly, also on theological topics, in addition 
to his required duties. 

It was a beautiful and exemplary act for him in ad- 
vanced life, after twenty years in the ministry, to identify 
himself with the rising enterprise of Foreign Missions. 
In this respect he takes rank with Coke, and Carey, and 
Phillips — names that can never die. 

The result of his missionary experience was eminently 
happy on his own life and character. His residence in 
another hemisphere expanded his views and sympathies 
toward the world. It gave him a store of happy recol- 
lections, and inspired him with the sublimest emotions 
when in the pulpit and on the platform advocating the 
evangelization of perishing men. 

On the whole, Dr. Dempster's mission life of about six 
years is an extremely-interesting period of his history, 
identifying him personally with the bioadest phase of 
Christian effort. Although he did not spend his days on 
foreign shores, his example and his teachings have stimu- 
lated others to do so, and thus his record is still, and long 
will be, perpetuated. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A STUDENT AND THINKER, 

BY REV. HEXRY BAXXTSTER, D. D. 

What might have been the career of John Dempster 
had he not in his youth been powerfully and vividly di- 
rected to a religious life, no one, of course, will attempt 
to say. It is obvious that the marked characteristics of 
his nature, manifested doubtless from earliest boyhood, 
were hdensity and depth. These came of necessity from 
the two native and most prominent features of his mind ; 
namely, a glowing imagination and a sturdy, unfaltering 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A STUDENT. 51 

will. They would have brought him into distinction of 
some sort nnder whatever impulse he might have lived and 
acted. 

But we are to judge of him from the career which 
transpired in his case, and present his intellectual char- 
{icter in the direction it took from the period of his con- 
version to God, at the age of eighteen years. Prior to 
this his education had been much neglected, as. in his 
early years, his father had died, and the support of his 
■widowed mother and family was left in good measure to 
him. From and ever after this period his desire for study 
was to be gratified only by an unflagging method in the 
use of his time and strength upon his books — he always, 
even to the day of his last illness, rising at four o'clock in 
the morning, and religiously observing through each day 
his set hours for reading and thinking. 

With occasional help he mastered the Latin and Greek 
grammars, and became early in his ministry a reader of 
the Greek Testament. He pursued the classics to a con- 
siderable extent, with a view to the acquirement, among 
other things, of an expressive vocabulary. His taste ran 
to a compact style of expression. It was his special aim 
to compress his thoughts into as few words as possible, 
and those of the greatest definiteness of meaning. An in- 
structor's forming hand would have been of great service 
to him here, and would have directed to an enlargement 
of his list of w-ords and a wiser choice, in some instances, 
in his selection of them ; at least, a larger infusion of the 
Saxon element would have added both force and grace to 
his expressions, so prone, as he must have been, to depart 
from the usual idiomatic style. He would also have been 
saved from a certain degree of obscurity which arose 
sometimes from an excessive brevity, and from the blem- 
ish of inaptness in the use of certain words. But it is, 



52 APPENDIX. 

after all, wonderful to what perfection lie, with such lim- 
ited mccans, did attain in his modes of expression, and 
what affluence of thought he would pour forth to delighted 
hearers, notwithstanding his meager vocabulary, which, 
unguided and alone, he seems to have prepared chiefly 
from words of classic origin. There was the glow of 
genius, in such times, on every terse and expressive pe- 
riod. Pared down to the greatest conciseness, his sen- 
tences rolled out the finest and often the most startling 
conceptions. 

He added, in due time, the study of the Hebrew to the 
Latin and the Greek. Never was a moment lost to these 
in the intervals of pastoral and pulpit duty. A large 
amount of his study he performed on horseback, through 
open country or forest trail, and in inconvenient cabins 
where perchance he lodged. Such was the spirit of oppo- 
sition to the ministry of his Church in that day, that he 
armed himself, also, with all possible resources to meet every 
theological subtilty. His mind, hence, fell naturally into 
the groove of dialectics, in which it so eminently worked 
ever since. The points of controversy were chiefly meta- 
physical, and he betook himself, as it behooved him, to 
the profound study of Butler, Locke, Reid, Stewart, Brown, 
and other reputed authors within his reach. He united 
the exact sciences, more or less, to these readings, and 
thus he purified and sharpened his distinguished logical 
faculty, in the use of which, as we know, he has always 
delighted to revel. 

The decided disadvantage of having had no instructors, 
no liberalizing atmospheie of learned halls to nurture and 
polish his intellectual growth, no sobering attritions that 
occur in daily recitation drill and in hourly fellowship 
with co-laborers in study, he ever felt and acknowledged. 
Yet there was in him much less exhibition of offensive and 



J 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A STUDENT. 53 

narrow conceits than is sometimes seen in cases of long- 
continued self-training. His learning, of course, occupied 
a narrower comj^ass and shared a more limited scope than 
if, under masters, he had swept the entire field of science ; 
and he might to some, in consequence, appear overcon- 
fident and dogmatic ; hut it was only in those classes of 
subjects in which, through long and concentrated think- 
ing, ho felt that he had a right to be positive. 

For similar reasons he was, perhaps, less prepared to 
appreciate the truest appliances of the educator. Him- 
self a marvel of success in study, under the most stinted 
privilege, it was easy for him to judge wrongly of the 
varying capacities of his pupils, and practically to set at 
defiance the proper classification of varying degrees of at- 
tainments among them. But if one in six or ten among 
them could not at times fathom his depth, or digest and 
assimilate the profound subject of his lecture, he some- 
how inspired all with a reverential enthusiasm, and un- 
consciously drew many to set out for loftier intellectual 
attainments. It certainly is to his credit that, before his 
death, his judgment — always in sympathy with progress, 
when he saw its fitness — observed the rising sentiment, 
and that he gracefully yielded to the demand for a higher 
standard of scholarship in those who are to be the repre- 
sentatives of the full course of instruction in the Insti- 
tute. 

In respect to Dr. Dempster as a thinker, his portraiture 
is the more difficult, as a comparison of traits always 
makes it the easiest to present a case, and as there is no 
example at hand that will exactly compare with him. 
His strong will made him heroic in self-denial and hard- 
ship, and especially enabled him to bend his mind to 
whatever subject was before him with concentrated and 
long-continued attention. Very few persons excelled him 



54 APPENDIX. 

in tliis power. Tliongh his mind had its seasons of un- 
bending, his tenacity of intellectual purpose was seldom 
allowed to be broken. He could easily resume his study 
and take up the thought just at the link of connection 
where he had left it, with no labor to gather his energies 
again, but Avith fresh earnestness and intensity. This 
power, partLy the gift of nature and partly the result of 
discipline for over fifty years, was available to him in the 
pulpit or in the deliberative assembly, where by the hour 
he would, in extemporaneous address, charm and often 
overpower intelligent audiences by compact and unfalter- 
ing argumentation. 

But he used it the most in his study, in his metaphys- 
ical inquiries. Besides the thinking Avhich he devoted to 
daily exercises with his class, it was his habit to have on 
hand also some special subject, usually metaphysical, and 
to linger long upon the study and analysis of it. For 
many years past these subjects have related mostly to 
the doctrines of ontology and causation. In this high re- 
gion of metaphysical thought — the region of ultimate cog- 
nitions, or first truths — he delighted to speculate. He 
drew from these cognitions his main weapons against as- 
sailants. Whether or not he settled their full character as 
first truths — which is the hardest problem of philosophy — 
is not the question now ; but he used them in every argu- 
ment. They sei-ved him as elements for premises to every 
conclusion. Admit them, and his conclusions were deci- 
sive ; deny or suspect them, and you were asked to show 
that they were not ultimate truths by sh-owing what deci- 
sive truth or principle was antecedent to them. Few, if 
any, could do this. First, because thought in its last an- 
alysis has not yet been settled by philosophy as decisively 
possible in but a small number of cases, at the most; and 
secondly, if it were possible, few persons have such a con- 



DK. DEMPSTER AS A STUDENT. 55 

j miction of faculties as to possess so vivid and penetra- 
tive a view of this high region of thought as did Dr. 
Dempster. 

And this leads me to repeat what at first I asserted, 
that, along with a commanding will, imagination was a 
distinguishing feature of his mind. It showed itself in 
the vivacious play of his faculty of comparison, giving 
vivid reminiscence of leluctantly-recurring relations of 
thought ; or, to state this under a figure, it sent its light 
along the track of argument so that the steps in the proc- 
ess of the argument flashed on his mind as by intuition. 
It gave well-defined outlines also to his ideas, so that the 
exactly-fitting words came readily for an effective expres- 
sion of them. He did not go feeling his way as if in 
doubt whether he were in the right way toward what he 
deemed a clinching conclusion ; but he went confidently, 
and delivered his decision as if it were an oracle to be re- 
ceived and submitted to, not a meie statement to be 
doubted and disputed. 

Safer or more cautious persons would often think that 
here his imagination was playing the mischief with just 
reasoning ; that so dazzling was his impression of some 
partial, some half truth, that he unwarrantably uttered 
himself with extravagant emphasis. No doubt this was 
at times his striking fault ; especially in practical things, 
and often in abstract, his deliverances had sometimes 
too great intensity from the glow which his imagination 
spread over his judgment. In a calm and just equipoise 
with the other faculties, the imagination is indispensable 
to the successful reasoner ; but let emotion at any time 
stimulate it to excess, then it seriously vitiates the other- 
wise ie5^1aid premises. It does this by the fallacy of 
proving too much — by the fallacy of overstatement or 
exaggeration. 



56 APPENDIX. 

Nevertheless, liis imagination was a divine gift to liim. 
In its free and unrestricted play in solemn public dis- 
course, and sometimes in the staid lecture or in the class 
exercise, it coruscated its pure light over his abstruse 
processes, and illumined to the commonest mind what 
would otherwise have been dark and unintelligible. He 
Avas by nature a poet, though he subjected his faculty 
less to its producing than to its representing, its sug- 
gesting power. Had this busy life ^^ermitted him time to 
survey all the fields of literature, there would have been 
no limit to the fertility of his resources for brilliant illus- 
tration ; but he brought his metaphors from the depart- 
meni of light, from the great agencies of nature, and 
from the drapery and powers of the world to come, and 
with these he dealt largely in antithesis and climiax ; and 
if you tired of his figures, perchance it was only because 
of their oft-repeated, monotonous, optical character, for 
the most part. 

The question has occurred, What claim had John 
Dempster to the rank of a philosopher? So intense 
was his concentration that his thinking was more in 
long lines of thought, seeking the utmost analysis of 
subjects, than in grappling with large and comprehensive 
bodies of thought. As he ran up his analyses, he would 
often seem to take positions that clashed with related 
doctrines which fell not within his track for the time. 
Though doubtless to his mind they were perfectly irrecon- 
cilable, it would have broken his spell-bound attention 
to have stopped to explain them ; and as his independent 
criticisms in philosophy and theology are many of them 
fragmentary, it is feared that his life was too soon cut 
off to allow of his .digesting them all into a consistent 
and complete system. Abundant material is undoubtedly 
left for an editor's hand to prove that his life was a high 



DR. DEMPSTEK AS A STUDENT. 57 

success in furnishing to the Church and the world rich 
treasures of original thought hoth in philosophy and the- 
ology. His own hand had indeed compacted his writings 
somewhat which relate to the doctrine of human freedom, 
and to certain branches of natural theology ; so that his 
claim to rank as a rich contributor to fields of thought 
in philosophy will scarcely be denied him. 

The truth in his case was, that his intense and deep 
nature was ever fastening itself on plans of work yet to 
be executed. With great painstakfng over his always 
feeble health, he protracted his years far beyond what was 
once deemed a possible expectation ; but his programme 
of life, as we know, was far from finished at his death. 
What revision or what recasting of his voluminous manu- 
scripts he might have done we know not ; but we do 
know that he was cut down with little or no decay of his 
intellectual power ; and most probably he looked for time 
yet to complete all his intellectual life-work — then to lay 
himself down in thanksgiving and joy. But he died on 
the threshold of such a reward, in hope, but not in pos- 
session. 

The grace of God aided the strong energies of his 
strong will, and made him a notable representative of a 
past age, a fresh sympathizer and co-worker with the 
ever-passing present, and a nourisher of deep yearnings 
for the future, which were to be quenched only by the 
sudden swoop of Death upon him. More than half a 
century since he peered high according to the standard 
of that time ; and as knowledge, and intellectual and 
social power gradually rose in the Church, leaving lag- 
gards and fossils behind, he ascended plane after plane 
of intellectual position, with his face firmly set to the last 
for never-ceasing improvement. The life of thought and 
progress he spent shall be a lasting and a lashing protest 



58 APPENDIX. 

to his survivors, and successors, and pupils against tame- 
ness of intellectual ambition, and against servility to old- 
time notions, os such, as a standard for intellectual lile 
and usefulness. Thougli gone from our midst, he lives 
still, and 2vill live. We shall see him on the horizon 
of the future, shedding light still on many a dark point 
by the thoughts he has set afloat on the age, and by the 
beacons to his memory in "the schools of the prophets." 
Surely a strong, intelligent, Chiistian character, sanc- 
tified in its aims, pardoned of its unprofitableness, over- 
ruled as to its defects, is a power in the earth ; it is 
God's instrumentality for the redemption of the world. 
It should sadden us that there is not a greater multipli- 
cation of it — that ourselves are spiritually and intellectu- 
ally so lacking in what is essential to it ; but a grateful 
opportunity is it that we can contemplate this one marked 
case of a Christian career, so long, so uninterrupted, so 
productive. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS AN INSTRUCTOR. 

BY REV. C. H. FOWLER, A. M. 

While I might wish that the task of presenting John 
Dempster as an instructor had been allotted to some abler 
of his many pupils, yet I must esteem it no less a privi- 
lege than an honor. It is no small blessing to be per- 
mitted to speak of such a man. As the patriot renews 
his devotion at the hallowed tomb of Washington, so the 
student may rekindle his zeal and mature his purpose at 
the consecrated mound of Dempster. As the mathemati- 
cian, about to space off a circle into degrees, may turn it 
round and round hardly knoAving where to commence, 
though conscious that it matters not, so I have turned Dr. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS AN INSTRUCTOR. 59 

Dempster's character round and round, not knowing 
where to commence. But the consciousness that so per- 
fect a character, if accurately delineated, will come out in 
its oneness and entirety wherever it may be first touched, 
makes me comparatively indifferent to the order of pre- 
sentation. That I may not seem to immolate the living 
upon the tombs of the dead, or praise too highly a benefactor 
and friend, I would have it remembeied that I speak of 
him only in his own peculiar department of systematic 
theology ; for this is where he made such wonderful revela- 
tions of his power and character. He who has carefully 
considered, or will so consider it, will see that while great 
breadth of views and depth of scholarship, and that, too, 
in preponderance over singleness and directness of thought 
along required lines, are necessary to the exegesist, the re- 
verse is true of him who would grapple successfully wath 
the tangled questions of theology. While he must have 
breadth and scholarship, he must the more have direct- 
ness and acuteness. This was Dempster's sphere, and 
here he planted his siege guns. To measure him here is 
no slight task, for there is no one man with whom to com- 
pare him, and no difficulty that circumscribed him. 

Go away from this busy, outdoor world of policies, 
wars, and histories, whose horizons encircle the race, and 
go into the recitation-room, where the student finds his 
world with policies, wars, and histories no narrower to 
him than these are to you, and you shall see how the 
Doctor loomed up in the characteristics so essential to the 
successful instructor. 

Few men have ever equaled him in poiver to communicate 
forcibly what appeared so clear and certain to himself. 
His bold, pointed, sometimes fierce and always clear illus- 
trations so concreted and incarnated the truth that the 
student might almost take it in his hands. Though all 



60 APPENDIX. 

fields were made tributary to liis illustrations, yet he espe- 
cially gathered from the fields of light and the types of 
life. You who have listened to his magnificent and im- 
pressive conversation can have some idea of his wonderful 
power of communication to the student. In this pecul- 
iarity he may justly be compared with Pythagoras at 
Crotona, and Coleridge at High Gate. His strength and 
accuracy soon secured that confidence without which the 
student is left to grope his way in the darkness. The 
steadiness of conscious strength marked his advances into 
disputed questions ; and the certainty with which his ar- 
guments brought him and all who followed him to the 
truth, made one willing to receive his conclusion because 
**he said it." But some unexpected inquiry, some stub- 
born question was always sure to drive the student to the 
reasons. All who sailed with him must be sailors. The 
zest with which he attacked errors and the ease with 
which he exposed them made even their advocates enjoy 
their destruction. Where he could not inspire confidence 
with the ease of his own advances, he compelled it with 
the power of his logic ; and Napoleon had no more confi- 
dent followers on the fields of Jena and Austerlitz than 
had this man in the questions of agency and the atone- 
ment. 

Though he was clad in mail which answered to the 
spear only with fire, yet there was always such an air of 
gentleness and sympathy about him that somehow seemed 
to buckle the student within and quicken him with his 
own generous heart-throbs ; and whether his disciples 
wore away the weary night to prepare for his coming, or 
stood with uncovered head in his presence, or in the days 
of his feebleness and affliction carried him in their arms 
to his post of duty, it was all done from an affection 
which could be kindled only by his own exhaustless love. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS AN INSTRUCTOR. 61 

In tliis power over those who knew him in his strong- 
]iohi — the recitation-room — he may stand side by side 
with the amiable Melancthon at Wittenburg. 

With these qualifications it needs hardly be stated that 
he had also the power to interest. Though he seemed 
always digging into the roots of things, yet he so con- 
stantly brought out their hidden relations to the every-day 
questions of right and duty, of conduct and character, 
that one felt that to lose one sentence that fell from his 
lips was to lose the real solution of some social or moral 
difficulty — his imagination presenting images glowing 
and grand, and his wit, sparkling, ready, resistless, and 
always kindly, made the dryest and the most abstruse 
subjects glow with living interest. If a dissenting pupil 
would not see an inevitable conclusion, a single compari- 
son on the involved absurdity would always extort from 
the will the conviction of the judgment. He so clothed 
virtue and unclothed vice, so dignified truth and be- 
meaned error, that they became authority and repelling 
forces, fixing the student's action no less than his atten- 
tion. The interest that warmed every subject he touched 
bound to him every genuine student no less firmly than 
were the young Athenians wedded to the unsandaled phi- 
losopher of Athens. As the profligate Alcibiades was 
compelled to stop his ears in presence of Socrates lest he 
should grow old under his voice, so the vicious could ill 
retain their vices in the presence of him whom we to- 
night commemorate ; for to hear him was to follow, and 
to follow was to obey. 

In the peculiar discouragements which none but the 
student may experience, Dr. Dempster came always with 
words of cheer. His smile in weariness, his calm purpose 
in the midst of delay, his buoyancy in spite of his cease- 
less toil, made the student feel that however slow the 



62 APPElsDIX. 

advancement, it was reward enougli simply to have studied 
and struggled. Wesley's words cheered not more the early 
itinerants, nor Washington's presence the veterans of 
Valley Forge, than did this man's precepts and practice 
encourage the dejected student. This was essential to his 
largest success ; for loneliness and wanderings somehow 
inhere in student-life, and eveiy scholar, sooner or later, 
finds his Valley Forge. 

That which did most to make the Doctor an instructor 
was the wonderful inspiration of his life-work. Where 
personal ambition and even a conviction of duty could not 
drive the student, he allured by the magic of his example. 
Europe followed Peter the Hermit not more eagerly through 
nakedness and famine toward the sepulcher of the Savior, 
than did all earnest students follow Dempster to the great 
truths of the atonement. No man could sit under his 
teachings without receiving clear ideas of God's spiritual 
government, a calm reverence for the living organism of 
the Church he represented, and a veneration for the dig- 
nity and responsibility of the Gospel ministry, and pur- 
jDOsing for himself a wide scholarship with which to meet 
that responsibility and adorn that ministry. Such is the 
character of John Dempster as he appeared to his pupils. 
To those of you who saw him only as he hastened along 
your streets or sat quiet on public occasions, this may 
seem overdrawn ; but to those who have known him in 
the no less stirring world of the recitation-room, these 
words will find ready response. Communicating knowl- 
edge like Coleridge, gaining confidence like Napoleon, 
winning affection like Melancthon, awakening interest 
like Socrates, giving encouragement like Wesley, and 
kindling inspiration like Peter the Hermit, he stood, in 
his sphere of systematic theology, an instructor without 
a supeiior, if not without a peer. In the mission on 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MAN OF PROGRESS. G3 

which he was sent into the world, he is the man of his 
century, and his works shall follow him. 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MAN OF PROGRESS. 

BY REV. O. H. TIFFANY, D. D, 

Distinction is achieved by some men, and is thrust 
upon others : some throw the gi-andeur of their personal 
genius over every act of common life ; others, who lead 
humbler lives, are made famous by the works which fol- 
low them. The first class, for the most part, are devoted 
to self ; the second class, more generally, are devoted to 
God. Public applause, in all its forms of notoriety and 
adulation, is the reward of those who seek display for 
selfish ends ; fame, the approbation of good men, is the 
boon God often gives to those who follow him. The 
marks of progress are close upon the footsteps of the 
earnest worker of God, who toils on, unconscious 

" How the great world 
Is praising him far off." 

The men of progress "go from strength to strength," 
heedless of men's applause. Companionship with Him 
who saw all things before they were has turned their 
gaze away from the fleeting present to the eternal future. 
With them ''the goal of to-day is but the starting-point 
of to-morrow." 

Such a man was Dr. Dempster. It were treason to his 
memory to say he worked for fame. If the cause which 
he espoused moved on, if God was glorified, his end was 
gained. The triumphs of progress in which he took part 
were not forecast in the brain of a dreamer, nor were 

they the Utopian schemes of an idealistic reformer ; thev 

38 



64 APPENDIX. 

grew out of the practical working of the system with 
which he, as a Christian minister, was identified, and 
resulted from necessities developed by experience. 

As presiding elder on the Cayuga district of the Oneida 
Conference he marked the fact that the preaching of the 
Word brought into the fold of Christ the educated and 
the influential. He feared that the control of educated 
mind would pass from us with the lapse of the fervor 
of a first love, and that the educated, failing to realize 
needed culture from those who had convinced, would seek 
their upbuilding at another shrine. He was ever jealous 
for Methodism, and fearful lest having labored another 
should build on his foundation. To meet their want 
thus felt, he applied to Bishop Hedding for the transfer 
of men of experience from the East ; and, as he said in 
Conference, and often by the fireside, "The bishop shook 
his gray locks and replied, 'We have no such men to 
spare.' " Men must then be made, was his conclusion ; 
and to the making of such men his efforts were thereafter 
devoted. All his energies were taxed to their utmost in 
the prosecution of this work, and he shrank from no toil, 
no sacrifice in its accomplishment. In the outset he had 
to depend on his own energy and means ; for when he 
with his associates kneeled to dedicate themselves and form- 
ally to offer their services to God, there were no buildings 
for instruction, no salaries for instructors, and but few 
friends for the enterprise itself. Methodism, v>'hicli was 
born in a university, and which grew out of the life and 
labors of an accomplished scholar, had come, in this re- 
spect, almost to disregard the teaching of John Wesley, 
and his example of studious toil. 

Dawning upon the world in an age when spiritual 
qualifications were considered less essential than intel- 
lectual accomplishment for the religious teacher, Method- 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MAN OF PROGRESS. 65 

ism had given sucli practical demonstration that minis- 
terial efficiency was not the result of intellectual might or 
of educated poiver, bnt of the spirit of the Lord of Hosts, 
that the great body of believers had gone to an opposite 
extreme, and seemed to believe that there was somewhat 
of efficiency in the very absence of culture ; and, though 
they honestly meant to give God all the glory, they made 
mental reservation of a little credit to the lack of learn- 
ing in the preacher. Add to this the fear which was 
justly entertained of reverting to practices which had 
proved ruinous enough to other Churches to necessitate 
the organization of our own, and we can see how fearful 
was the task attempted ; yet we know not that he ever 
faltered. Faint sometimes from his weary efforts — sad- 
dened often by repulses where he had hoped for sym- 
pathy — but distrustful of the end or doubtful of the right, 
never. Believing himself in no small manner called to 
this work — aware of its importance to the Church and 
to the world — he struggled and toiled till he mastered 
opposition, conquered difficulties, and saw our Biblical 
Institutes recognized by the General Conference as in- 
stitutions of the Church, When the feeble beginning 
at Newberry had been consummated at Concord, he 
turned his eye westward, and was not slow to enter 
upon similar labors in the great North- West, where, 
greeted by the benefactions of a pious matron — a mem- 
ber of the Church in which we are now assembled — he 
laid the corner-stone and assisted in the founding of a 
second institute. Here he labored and tauo-ht; but his 
fame will rest not on his teachings, but his toils ; for 
long after the philosophy he investigated shall have ceased 
to interest and to instruct, the results flowing from the 
fact of organized ministerial culture will still fill the 
world with blessing:. 



66 APPEXDIX. 

•The spirit of progress "makes the coming life-cry 
always, On;" and of this spirit he was full. From the 
banks of Lake Michigan he looked over, across prairies 
and beyond mountains, to the shore of the Pacific Ocean; 
mingling with the gentle ripple of the lake, his ear ever 
heard the reverberation of the ocean surges, and the desire 
was strong within him to complete a triad of benefactions 
for the Church, by erecting on the western slope of the 
Eocky Mountains another "school for the prophets." 
But it is enough for one laborer to have changed the 
current of a Church's life into a broader channel, and 
to have placed, both in New England and in the ex- 
pansive West, a Pharos — a beacon which should not 
only guide but cheer. All honor to the man who, though 
himself unblessed with early culture, so saw its need as 
to devote the genius which was given him, as well as the 
results of its consecration to the culture of his brethren. 

The great problem of the age is freedom ; and with the 
destinies of civil liberty the history of our Church has 
been mysteriously interwoven. At a time when the 
fathers of the Eepublic provided shelter for slavery in 
the Constitution as an evil which they fondly hoped 
would be but short-lived, the fathers of the Church, in 
1796, were asking every one whom they received, "What 
regulations shall be made for the extirpation of the cry- 
ing evil of African slavery?" The nation prospered, the 
Church increased, but slavery flourished. . All through 
the Union the testimony of the Church was a rebuke to 
the nation, as from Maine to Texas the question was 
asked, "What shall be done for the extirpation of this 
evil?" And in all the States the answer was made, that 
"we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of 
slavery." 

Political profligacy debauched the national conscience 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MAN OF PROGRESS. 67 

find prostituted the national honor ; yet still tlie affirma- 
tion of the Church was made, and her offices Avere re- 
fused to those who were entangled in unholy alliance with 
the gigantic evil. The time came when one of the chiefest 
officers of the Church became by marriage ''connected 
with slavery." The facts in the case and the principle 
involved were discussed in the General Conference of 
1844, and by a vote of one hundred and eleven to sixty- 
eight Bishop Andrew was directed to "desist from the 
exercise of his office as long as this impediment remains." 
Bishop Andrew desired to resign the office which he held, 
and had written his resignation, but was prevented from 
so doing by the remonstrance of his brethren from the 
Southern Conferences, who had already decided that slave- 
holding was no disqualification. The result was the rup- 
ture of the Church, and the formation of a Methodist 
Episcopal Church South. Advantage was taken of this 
result to stifle the growing sentiment of the Church, and 
prevent its utterances for freedom on the ground of an- 
ticipated injury to the border Conferences, though their 
representatives had brought the Church to the issue, and 
had fought the battle of freedom. And for years the 
Church added nothing to the force of its testimony, till, 
instead of leading moral sentiment, it was far behind the 
moral conviction of its membership. 

The men of progress were aroused, and among them 
John Dempster stood foremost, demanding, in 1856, that 
the Church should speak, in language not to be mis- 
taken, the conviction that slavery was "contrary to the 
law of God and nature, and inconsistent with the Golden 
Rule." Loud were the anathemas of border State men; 
deep were the execrations of the enemies of freedom ; 
but, despite them all, in 1860 the Church righted, and 
made the affirmation changing the rule, interpreting its 



68 APPEXDIX. 

own language, and placing itself before the nation and 
before the world in a just position, to become a rallying- 
point for the friends of freedom when rebeldom should 
seek with armed A-iolenee to strike down human hope and 
human liberty. The rebellion opened its batteries, mar- 
shaled its armies, and flung its defianee in the face of the 
nation. The men of the Union were paralyzed in their 
efforts by their former concessions to the slaye power, 
and the great heart of the Republic was oppressed with 
fear lest freedom should be circumscribed, and slavery ob- 
tain advantages which might establish it forever. Then 
the Christian men of the Xorth-West, which territory- 
had by special act been set apart for freedom, met in 
council in Chicago, and selected W. W. Patton and 
John Dempster to bear to the President of the United 
States their religious conviction of his duty to issne a 
Proclamation of Emancipation. They stood before the 
Chief Magistrate and reasoned with him of righteousness 
and judgment ; and the opponents of the measure have 
always charged that these men were greatly influential in 
procuring for the nation that Proclamation which struck 
off the fetters from 4,000,000 slaves, and by so doing 
righted the Ship of State, changed the conduct of the 
war from a policy to a jjrinciple, and made the line 
of our national life parallel with our Declaration of In- 
dependence. The bearers of that message were men 
worthy of their mission : the one the pastor of a con- 
gregation, owning no fellowship v\dth slavery; the other 
the representative of a Church which, in all the history 
of the century, had been asking, " AYhat shall be done 
for the extirpation of this great evil?" In these great 
events, as we have seen, John Dempster was a leader. 
He anticipated the future, and stood up to meet the com- 
ing crisis ; and his name will be enrolled with those who 



DR. DEMPSTER AS A MAN OF PROGRESS. 69 

repaii'ed the broken altars of the Temple of God, and 
strengthened the pillars of national freedom. 

This spirit of prog'ress which was in him gave a charm 
to his whole life and bearing. It kept him ever young ; 
for it allied him in sympathy and in action with the 
living, throbbing heart-beat of the moving world. To 
whatever age his life might have been prolonged, he could 
never have become an old man, or been alienated from 
the onsweeping effort of determined progress. He never 
joined in the querulous complaint of the "former days 
better than now," but his spirit ever was ''leaving the 
things which are behind press forward." Eight cheerily 
did he welcome as an auxiliary ever}^ earnest man and 
every earnest movement for the good of the Church. 

Desiring progress, and believing well that every honest 
effort was promotive of the truth, he stimulated discus- 
sion with those who differed fiom him. And, though 
the intensity of his own convictions may have prevented 
somewhat his appreciation of the possibility of an equal 
and yet opposite conviction in another, he delighted in 
the exercise of conscious strength, and felt and claimed 
that truth was near its triumph when the conflict waxed 
severe ; and every one who felt his strength, or whose 
desire is for truth rather than for victory, can judge with 
what keen and exquisite relish he presented the opinions 
Avhich resulted from patient labor in his own chosen field. 
Had he lived, the proposed extension of the term of 
ministerial service and the idea of "lay representation" 
would both have received his vote in the General Con- 
ference, for they commended themselves to his matured 
judgment as progressive movements demanded by the 
times. He may have felt that all the means and methods 
used to secure the association of laymen in the councils 
of the Church were not wise, but he felt also that much 



70 APPENDIX. 

of the opposition to it was factious, partisan, and un- 
generous ; that the "let well enough alone" ciy of many- 
was the very rallying shout of those whom he had met 
and vanquished as the foes of ministerial culture, and his 
age would not have deterred him from engaging their 
weapons, answering their arguments, and overcoming 
their prejudices ; while the recollected achievements of 
his earlier manhood would have invested his position 
with a moral fitness almost sublime. 

" Great minds can never cease ; yet have they not 
A separate estate of deathlessness ; 
The future is a remnant of their life ; 
Our time is part of theirs, not theirs of ours." 

The lesson of John Dem]3ster's life — sjMnt as it was in 
grappling with error and in mastering the difficulties that 
opposed progress — pervaded as it was with that "sym- 
pathy with God" which is "the master spirit of true 
progress" — speaks to us at this hour, saying: 

"Breast the wave, Christian, wlien it is strongest; 
Watch for day, Christian, when night is longest; 
Onward and onward still be thine endeavor; 
The rest that remaineth endureth forever. 

Fight the fight, Christian — Jesus is o'er thee; 
Run the race, Christian — heaven is before thee; 
He who hath promised faltereth never ; 
0, trust in the love that endureth forever. 

Lift the eye, Christian, just as it closeth ; 

Raise the heart. Christian, ere it reposeth ; 

Nothing thy soul from the Savior shall sever; 

Soon shalt thou mount upward to praise him forever." 

His departure we have seen, and each of us has cried: 
"My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the 
horsemen thereof!" God grant that whoever may be 
called to wear his ^^iitle^ay possess a double portion 

of his spirit! '^ " 




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